Ethics

“House Ethics Chairman May Quit, Officials Report”
House Ethics…is that an oxymoron?

It seems that “Doc” Hastings’s has now grown weary of being noticed by the press.

“Mr. Hastings was named chairman of the ethics committee in February, succeeding Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado, who drew the ire of some fellow Republicans when the committee admonished Mr. DeLay three times last year.” Naughty, naughty! Mr. Hefley. You must not speak ill of your fellow Republicans, even when they deserve it.

An article this week in The Tri-City Herald, the local newspaper of Mr. Hastings's hometown, Pasco, Washington, detailed his ties to Preston Gates & Ellis, a Seattle law firm that has been linked to Mr. DeLay, and to one of its major lobbying clients in the 1990's, the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific.

“At the firm's urging, Mr. Hastings introduced testimony into the record in the House in support of the islands' efforts to prevent the federal minimum wage from being imposed on its clothing factories. The headline on the article was "Hastings' Link to Islands Sullies Ethics Post." The firm's former chief lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, is now the focus of a federal corruption investigation here.”

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive…