Thursday, May 25, 2006

Jefferson Digs In

I've been pretty hard on Nancy Pelosi for not taking a harder line on William Jefferson. It appears she has been getting quite a bit of internal fire for trying to do just that. From The Hill:
Pelosi move triggers revolt

Furious black lawmakers, rallying behind Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), were pulled back from the brink of open revolt against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in an emergency meeting with her Wednesday evening.

[...] Earlier this week, Pelosi approached Jefferson and told him that she thought he should resign, according to a Democratic aide. Later, at the Democratic caucus meeting yesterday morning, she took him into a side room and told him that she had prepared a letter calling on him to resign the committee seat and that she would allow him one hour to withdraw gracefully before she sent it, according to the aide. In both instances, Jefferson remained defiant.

Pelosi’s one-sentence missive to Jefferson called on him to vacate his committee seat “in the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus.”

Jefferson promptly refused, calling her request “discriminatory” and “unprecedented,” and suggested that she was employing a double standard by failing to ask other lawmakers facing ethics questions to relinquish their committee assignments. Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) has come under fire for earmarks he secured through his seat on the Appropriations Committee.

“I will not give up a committee assignment that is so vital to New Orleans at this crucial time for any uncertain political strategy,” Jefferson said.

If Jefferson really wanted to helped the people of New Orleans, he would have used his tremendous balls to shield the city from Katrina.

Oh, and no word yet on whether Mollohan was caught on video accepting $100,000 in marked bills that were later found in his freezer...

I won't be surprised one bit if its discovered that Jefferson rode an Army convoy through the post-hurricane flood to get to his house in an attempt to retrieve/destroy evidence.

Jefferson is fucking dirty. Period. The CBC had better get used to that idea. I can understand some conciliatory remarks from them looking out for one of their own such as "we're witholding comment until charges are filed." Even, "Rep. Jefferson is innocent until proven otherwise." But they sould not be going after the knees of Pelosi for doing what she has to to defend the Party.

UPDATE: It should be noted that Mollohan no longer sits on the Appropriations Committee either. Jefferson should follow suit.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good post. And good for Pelosi.

The Congressional Black Caucus members should be leading the charge to have Jefferson stand down from his committee assignment, at least, or better yet resign.

What they're foolishly saying is, "We don't care what a person may have done. If they're black, we're behind them no matter what."

Jefferson's going to come out looking bad. That's a lock. Why do the dim bulbs of the CBC want to join him? They're handing people like Bill O'Reilly the kind of ammunition they live for.

Otto Man said...

Agreed. The Dems in general and the CBC in particular need to boot this guy. He's the finger in the dike right now, but if he can be investigated and tossed, all the GOP Abramoff buddies will follow.