Hey guys! What’d I miss? Anything exciting? I mean other than Barack Obama’s golf game forcing a military couple to move their wedding?
In the spirit of Christmas, I’m not even going to rag on that. It was his staff’s fault, not his; they’re the ones who should have known better. He called to apologize. And if you got married in the row of Dumpsters at K-bay, it would still be beautiful. Plus, it’s not like our President doesn’t have a deep and unrelenting need for space. He’s a busy man, people. He’s only been golfing 25 times this year.
Anyway, while I was gone, apparently, members of our fair Republican House were taking advantage of the December recess to clear some skeletons out of their closet. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was revealed to have spoken at a gathering of white supremacists in 2002, and New York Rep. Michael Grimm pleaded guilty to tax evasion in Federal court. Steve Scalise is hanging on, since like with Barack’s golf mishap, he claims his poor choice in speaking engagements was the the fault of his staff, but Grimm is likely to hang up his hat today.
Rep. Michael Grimm plans to resign from Congress in the wake of his guilty plea on a felony tax evasion charge.
Grimm (R-S.I.) said after he entered his plea last week that he would continue to serve in the House.
But he reversed course after speaking Monday to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has taken a hard line on Republicans facing ethics charges.
“The events which led to this day did not break my spirit, nor the will of the voters,” Grimm said in a statement issued Monday night. “However, I do not believe that I can continue to be 100% effective in the next Congress, and therefore, out of respect for the office and the people I so proudly represent, it is time for me to start the next chapter of my life.”
Even if the next chapter of his life continues to include his habit of giving Brooklyn ladies seventeen minutes in heaven, Grimm’s resignation is probably for the best. After all, it’s so easy to get rich in Congress within the letter of the law (just ask Nancy Pelosi), that it’s almost embarrassing to have a guy on your team who has to resort to hiding his profits from the IRS. We definitely prefer our elected officials to be aboveboard with their self-enrichment.
As for Scalise, well, I’m more on Erick Erickson’s side than fellow Spectator Scott McKay‘s. It’s hard for me to believe that Scalise somehow missed that his speech on tax policy was being delievered to a room full of neo-Nazis. It’s not as though people were still in the dark about David Duke in 2002, or that a quick scan of the audience wouldn’t have turned up some questionable regalia. I mean, I’ve never been to a white supremacist gathering, nor do I plan to ever attend one, but my experience with political events seems to indicate that at least someone would have turned up with an inappropriate tee shirt. Even if your staff books you into an event, you can always “fall ill with the flu” upon receiving the event schedule. Plus, I’d be a hypocrite if I condemned Chris McDaniel’s regularly scheduled appearances at Confederate-friendly events if I didn’t have an obvious problem with Scalise’s campaign stop.
Sometimes, yes, the liberal media is needlessly smearing a Republican for something that, no doubt, hundreds of Democrats have done – heck, Robert Byrd probably has a Congressional closet full of freshly-pressed white hoods – but sometimes, it’s worth taking the hatchet to a couple of bad apples. Why suffer the fools?
