Pelosi's swamp of corruption

During the recent congressional campaigns, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised as speaker to "drain the swamp" of Republican corruption if her party won control of the House.

What she didn't say is that she'd fill the swamp up with a type of Democratic sludge that, if not corrupt, has an awful stench about it - enough of a stench to draw fire from some good-government watchdog groups that generally favor Democrats.

Her support of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., for majority leader was particularly distressing. He's popular with the anti-war crowd, but not the anti-corruption crowd.

"Pelosi's endorsement (of Murtha) suggests ... she was interested in (cleaning up) the culture of corruption only as a campaign issue and has no real interest in true reform," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

As a longtime senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Murtha has been accused of directing federal money to defense lobbyists who contribute to his campaigns, after which he uses his clout to block ethics investigations into his activities. Then there's Murtha's fishy involvement in the 1980 Abscam bribery scandal. He didn't take the bribe, but he didn't report it either - and even left the door ajar to accepting it down the road.

Pelosi's pledge to make the next Congress the most ethical and corruption-free in history was just so much hooey. Consider this: She's not standing in the way of Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to head up the powerful House Financial Services Committee, even though in 1990 he was formally reprimanded by his House colleagues, on a 408-18 vote, for fixing parking tickets for a male prostitute who was living with him.

This is hard to believe, but there is even talk that Pelosi will name Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., to be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, a highly sensitive post requiring trust, secrecy and discretion - qualities that Hastings has never shown in the past. In 1989, as a federal judge Hastings was impeached and removed from the bench for perjury and conspiring to obstruct justice.

Voters should not be betrayed. Pelosi's talk of ethics was just that - talk.