How deep do they have to cut to get down to healthy tissue? That’s the question.
As you can see somewhere prominently noted on most of the news sites, House Republican leaders have decided to can Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) who now — but check your watches, because probably not for long — serves as chairman of the House Committee on Administration. Ney certainly isn’t the worst offender in the Abramoff scandal. But he may be the sloppiest and most flagrant.
Federal prosecutors have already asserted as fact — in the Scanlon indictment — that Ney accepted bribes. Clearly, there’s an indictment headed his way. So it’s hard to see how House Republicans can make even a colorable claim to cleaning up the mess they’ve created without booting Ney from his committee chairmanship.
(As a side note, let’s observe that it sure ain’t pretty when the members of a gang decide to take out one of their own, is it? Cue your favorite analogous scene from Mob cinema or The Sopranos.)
In any case, is that enough?
Despite the fact that the feds seem to have Ney nailed dead to rights, he’s hardly a big player in this story. Is it really zero-tolerance for those compromised by Abramoff-related criminality? How about the DeLay syndicate? What’s the standard?
