Joe Conason: Why probe Charlie Rangel -- but not Mitch McConnell?

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/charlie_rangel_dny/index.html?story=/opinion/conason/2010/03/05/mcconnell


Why probe Charlie Rangel -- but not Mitch McConnell?

Rangel faces charges over fundraising for a center named after him. Didn't the Senate GOP leader do the same thing?

By Joe Conason

snip//

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has named both Rangel and McConnell to its annual lists of the "most corrupt" legislators, the list of donors to the McConnell Center was kept hidden by university administrators. When the Louisville Courier-Journal sued to obtain the names of those donors, the Kentucky Supreme Court handed down a curious decision. Future donors to the center would have to be revealed, the court ruled in August 2008, but 62 past donors could remain anonymous.

But thanks to the newspaper's diligent reporting, names of several of the bigger donors have emerged over the past several years. They include Toyota, which gave $833,000 to the McConnell Center and considers the Kentucky senator among its main Washington assets during its current crisis; RJ Reynolds and Phillip Morris, which gave $150,000 and $450,000, respectively, and which know they can count on him as a staunch backer of tobacco interests; and Yum Inc., the huge KFC/Pizza Hut/Taco Bell franchiser and a $250,000 donor, whose management was surely pleased when McConnell sponsored a special-interest bill protecting the fast-food industry against lawsuits alleging that their products cause obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Yet of all the dubious donors to the McConnell Center, the worst smell emanates from BAE Systems, the British-based defense firm that just settled a years-long, transatlantic bribery investigation last month by paying a record $450 million fine negotiated by prosecutors in London and Washington. BAE subsidiary United Defense Industries gave $500,000 to the McConnell Center because, as a spokesman proudly explained to the Courier-Journal, "We have a very good relationship with Senator McConnell. We appreciate all he's done for our company and our employees in Louisville."

What has he done for BAE? In the fall of 2007, to cite just one notorious instance, he secured three earmarks worth $25 million for the firm in the defense appropriations bill for programs that the Pentagon had not requested. By then, everyone knew that BAE was crooked and under investigation by the Justice Department, but McConnell continued to perform favors for the company and accept donations from its political action committee.

"Most politicians decide that a scandal is a good time to stop doing business with a company, at least until the scandal is over," remarked CREW executive director Melanie Sloan at the time. "Particularly when we're talking about a criminal investigation over bribery. You would think that a member of Congress would want to steer clear of anyone accused of bribery."

Unless you're Mitch McConnell, that is, who can rely on his fellow senators to do nothing about his corrupt earmarking -- and on the mainstream media, whose deep thinkers will swoon over Rangel's wrongdoing while McConnell's trespasses are simply never mentioned.

[depakid]

1. Why not go after the whole lot of them?

[Duckhunter935]

2. right

the he did it excuse is bull

[spotbird]

3. The point is that the Democrats are

held accountable when Republicans doing the same thing are not.

It does not excuse Rangel, but it sure as hell is fucked up.

[depakid]

5. Last I heard there was a Democrat in the Whitehouse- and running the Justice Department

as well as both houses of Congress.

Things that make you go hmmmm.

[ananda]

4. One law for Dems, no law for Reeps.

That's why.