The New Reformers

Newspapers are finally shining a light on some of the routine seaminess that takes place on the Hill. USA Today: "One day after a New York investment group raised $110,000 for Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, the House passed a defense spending bill that preserved $160 million for a Navy project critical to the firm. The man who protected the Navy money? Lewis."

Boston Globe: "As lawmakers last month scrambled to avoid the fallout of a widening influence-peddling scandal, US Representative Michael E. Capuano of Somerville and his wife went on a $19,403 corporate-sponsored trip to Brazil -- one of the most expensive trips taken by any member of Congress during 2005, according to congressional travel records.

"The trip included several lobbyists and representatives of companies that helped finance the nonprofit business organization that sponsored the trip, according to participants."

Josh Marshall uses a news conference to ask why Hastert has been slow off the mark:

"QUESTION: Mr. Speaker, if I could ask you a question, the Abramoff scandal is what has forced you into this position. A year ago, the things that you're proposing would not have been politically possible for you to talk about. Why is the Congress reacting and why didn't it act initially if all these are good ideas?

"HASTERT: Well, you know, a year ago most people around Congress couldn't tell you who Jack Abramoff was and didn't know who his associates were or what connections there are .

"That's great. People on Capitol Hill didn't know who Jack Abramoff was or who his associates were? The guy was one of the biggest lobbyists in DC, moved huge amounts of money around Capitol Hill, was close to most of the key Republican power-brokers in and out of Congress. But no one knew who he was. And no one knew who his associates were?

"This is a deeper vein than it looks like on the surface. Denny Hastert is like the Mr. Magoo of DC Republican corruption. The DeLay Machine was the muscle and sinew of the House on his watch. The Abramoff clique ran deep tentacles all through the institution. But Hastert didn't know anything about it. It's all news to him."

The New Republic's Michael Crowley seconds Marshall's point:

"Hastert is being even more disingenuous than that. John McCain held his first two Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings on Abramoff back in the fall of 2004 -- hearings which made screamingly clear that something was very wrong with Abramoff's congressional ties. So it's been nearly 18 months since it was obvious what sort of character Abramoff is. It's hard to say whether Hastert is fibbing here or whether he's simply as clueless as some people suspect."

National Review says some of the proposals being kicked around are beside the point:

"Tightening the gift ban, so that lobbyists can't take members out to dinner, strikes us as a way to generate a lot of paperwork without doing much to fight corruption. Congressmen can't be bought for a dinner.