auditcongress.com

One of my favorite bloggers is the well known Glenn Reynolds, who operates one of the most popular blogs on the web, Instapundit!. Glenn is a Law Professor at the University of Tennessee, and blogs on a (very) wide range of topics. Today he has a piece up on the Examiner where he discusses "Washington's New Culture of Impunity": 

In the run-up to the 2006 elections, Democrats promised to end the "culture of corruption" in Washington.  In the run up to the 2008 elections, Barack Obama promised "a new kind of politics."

But what we're seeing today seems like a very old kind indeed.  If there's anything new about it, it's mostly that in this new Washington, even the people who get caught misbehaving don't face any consequences.

Glenn then reviews some of the current corruption news in Washington, including Treasury Secretary Nominee Timothy Geithner, Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd and Tom Daschle. Oops, I guess it's not Treasury Secretary Nominee, Geithner was approved by the Senate, despite the type of issues that would get staff now under his supervision fired:

For that matter, an IRS field agent with these tax problems would have been cashiered, but Geithner, who will have the IRS under his supervision, gets the job anyway.

What are the consequences of allowing corruption to run unchecked at the highest levels of government?  Once again, we find that we are on the same page as Professor Reynolds:

So in a way we have found a new kind of politics.  We've gone from a "culture of corruption" in which people who figured in scandals (can you say "Duke Cunningham"?) faced actual consequences, to a culture of impunity, in which it's taken for granted that the rules for big shots are different.

Don't pay your taxes?  If you run a dry cleaning shop in Cincinnati, the IRS will come down on you like a ton of bricks.  But if you're a congressman or a former senator or a Treasury nominee, you can just sheepishly pay up, perhaps even , as in Daschle's case, without being assessed any penalties.

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Ordinary Americans can be excused for thinking that there are two sets of rules:  One for the big shots, the connected, the Made Men of Washington D.C., and another for everyone else.

So as we start this blog as a call to action, we find we are not alone in our concerns. This issue should concern all Americans who wish this county well, and hope for its future.

Dan Murphy