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It's a name that shame has lately been connected with, as George M Cohan almost sang.
The questionably Honorable rep from WV-1 is, you'll recall, apparently under FBI investigation for corruption in relation to certain earmarks.
Under the circumstances, you might suppose that he would pass on further earmarks until the matter had been resolved.
If you did, you'd be wrong.
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| Bold as brass, he took himself down to the legalized bribery souk and ordered three nice juicy earmarks to the FY08 ag apps bill. One intended recipient was one of the organizations to which the FBI investigation apparently relates.
That's not the story. That's just business as usual.
This is the start of the story:
The House Rules Committee, prompted by a request from Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), effectively struck three earmarks that the lawmaker himself had asked for from the Agriculture appropriations bill Wednesday night.
Now, you could spin this as a bit of belated swamp-draining - but not in the expectation of being believed by any but the most naively partisan in the lefty sphere.
The piece says:
Mollohan anticipated that Republicans would move to strike the earmarks on the floor, as they did to other earmarks to the Canaan Valley Institute and other West Virginia nonprofits last week, so he offered an amendment to the agriculture-spending bill that would have prevented any money in the bill from being directed to the institute, according to one Democratic aide with knowledge of the matter.
(How does the hack know the aide had knowledge of the matter? She just does.)
Now, Mollohan and his antics have, to a large extent, been discounted in the price of the Dem House party. Until the gyves go on, in himself, he's long since become fish-wrapping.
So, he's not the story either.
Here's the story:
Instead of forcing Mollohan to offer and debate the amendment on the floor, the Rules Committee simply struck the earmarks from the bill.
Is Pelosi looking to save his face or her own? It would, after all, have been a stunning opportunity for Dems to stand up for clean government. Or not.
My guess: Pelosi would deep-six Mollohan if she could (she can't - she won't even be able to can Jefferson after a guilty verdict so long as he stays out of the hoosegow), but, as it is, wants to limit the damage.
Bad enough that he's chairman of the commerce apps subcommittee - the one that funds the FBI - without his fellow Dems being forced to pass judgement on a cash-grab for the benefit of (who knows?) a future unindicted co-conspirator.
What if they voted to nix it? What if they didn't?
According to Novak, other Mollohan earmarks attached to FY08 apps bills have survived challenge. But then, perhaps his fellow reps decided that
$140,000 for the Wetzel County, W.Va., courthouse
and
$231,000...for West Virginia University Research Corp. to renovate a "small business incubator."
offered too small a potential rake-off to bother about!
Of course, the whole handling of the earmarks issue, like that of ethics generally, has been a triumph for Pelosi: a miracle of waters-muddying, running down the clock and tiring everyone out, so that few know or care what the current proposals might be in S 1 (if that's where they are).
Within the Capitol, I suspect that there'll be a big sigh of relief when we finally get an ethics act (with not too many ethics in it, natch) and the gators in the swamp can get their snouts back in the trough. |
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