Another verse of an old Texas song?
Star-Telegram | 06/11/2005 | Another verse of an old Texas song?: "Stop me if you've heard this story:
A politician from Texas gets elected to Congress. He shrewdly uses his fiery personality and hardball political skills to rise rapidly through the ranks, becoming his party's leader in the House.
Then the story breaks: He has pocketed large sums of corporate money and used his influence to promote those same corporate interests in the halls of government.
Meanwhile, back home in Texas, he is wielding his power, along with generous amounts of that corporate money, to influence the Texas Legislature in ways that greatly further his political ambitions.
Soon he becomes the target of a government investigation in Texas. The national press, smelling blood, finds additional evidence of blatant corruption. Congressional investigations follow. He defiantly proclaims his innocence, weathers the investigations and easily wins re-election.
No, I'm not talking about embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. In fact, I've just described Joseph Weldon Bailey, one-time House minority leader and later U.S. senator.
But Bailey's story, which played out a hundred years ago, offers more than just coincidental parallels to the ongoing DeLay case. In fact, some of DeLay's current difficulties are directly traceable to this long-ago saga of political corruption in Washington and Austin."
A politician from Texas gets elected to Congress. He shrewdly uses his fiery personality and hardball political skills to rise rapidly through the ranks, becoming his party's leader in the House.
Then the story breaks: He has pocketed large sums of corporate money and used his influence to promote those same corporate interests in the halls of government.
Meanwhile, back home in Texas, he is wielding his power, along with generous amounts of that corporate money, to influence the Texas Legislature in ways that greatly further his political ambitions.
Soon he becomes the target of a government investigation in Texas. The national press, smelling blood, finds additional evidence of blatant corruption. Congressional investigations follow. He defiantly proclaims his innocence, weathers the investigations and easily wins re-election.
No, I'm not talking about embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. In fact, I've just described Joseph Weldon Bailey, one-time House minority leader and later U.S. senator.
But Bailey's story, which played out a hundred years ago, offers more than just coincidental parallels to the ongoing DeLay case. In fact, some of DeLay's current difficulties are directly traceable to this long-ago saga of political corruption in Washington and Austin."
posted by Unknown at 9:13 AM
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