Chairman of Congressional Black Caucus knee deep in bribery scandal.

Hah! "Rep", as in Representative, not "Rep" as in Republican.

Now, the interesting aspect of this pretty much "run of the mill" Congressional corruption story is how little coverage its gotten. With all the clang and clamor over Abramoff and the San Diego fella, you'd think maybe this guy would get some press as well. Not....

Okay, so the questions for debate are two:

1) How much, if anything, have you heard about this scandal before, and from what media sources?

2) What accounts for the apparent paucity of coverage?

Well if thats the 'interesting thing; about this case, then its not very interesting. I've certainly read about it before, its not like its been hidden on the back page below 'contract bridge' by all those dastardly lefty/pinko newspapers...

So, another corruption story, and the man pleaded guilty, and he will be punished for it. How does that in any way detract from the other scandals we have seen? What point exactly are you trying to make?

How much, if anything, have you heard about this scandal before, and from what media sources?
Not much. Certainly not on Think Progress, which I think is just a disservice to everyone who uses that site. I think I saw a lead up on CNN a few weeks ago.

What accounts for the apparent paucity of coverage?
In spite of the straing corporate interests places on journalistic integrity, pinko Reds still control the media strings.

Actually, I ask myself this same question about several stories throughout the year. I just never ask it on . Here's a guess: it's not as sexy as other congressional scandals. I mean it literally.

This has been covered on Hardball. Perhaps you are tuning in the wrong media, or maybe you just drifted off in the recliner and slept through coverage.



Hardball Transcript

In fact, this thread makes me want to take a nap.

How about the fact that it is all but over, and no follow up story other than jail, and it doesn't involve lying over the deaths of thousands of Americans- can I get a loud "duh"?

1. Well, let's see. Last weekend, Daniel Schorr talked about it on NPR's weekend edition. I also saw it on Working For Change, a pretty liberal site. Oh, and of course, The Washington Post...

2. First, there's not a 'paucity of coverage' about this. Of course there is relatively less press about it than with the DeLay case or the others - after all, DeLay is a more prominent Congressman, and the Abramoff scandal is much more widespread. Jefferson's corruption is typical - a Congressman doing favors for a crony.

The K-street mess is much worse, because it's exposing the fact that Republicans in Congress have corrupted the entire lobbying industry. This (Republican-led) Congress will quite possibly be considered one of the most corrupt in our history. Of course, as it is with politicians, noone has clean hands entirely.

There is always hypocrisy when it comes to partisan politics. Republicans condemn other countries for abusing human rights, yet make jokes about 'fraternity-type pranks' when it comes to abuses by the US. People don't tend to offer up as much criticism for their own 'side.' It's just the way most people work. Look at the reaction so many on the right have when us 'lefties' criticize US policies. We hate America! We're always running America down! Why can't we focus on the wrongs of others? But it's the same principle. So you're trying to pull a "gotcha" here, but it falls flat on every level. You seem to assume there is a widespread liberal bias in the media, but there isn't - there are other reasons this scandal has gotten less attention than others. When the Democrats were in the white house, the same media was focusing on Clinton, and less on Republican scandals.

Mainly, it's no revelation that people in general are less likely to criticize or castigate the people on their own team, rather than the people on the other team. Most players don't yell at the ref for not spotting a foul their teammate committed.

First let's dispense with your highly misleading "headline," Bikerdad. Rep. William L. Jefferson is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He is not the chairman. Representative James Clyburn is.

The blogger you quote, Jim Kouri, went to the trouble of putting the quotation marks around "Chairman" to avoid confusion. Perhaps you could have done likewise?

Now on to your questions.

1. I've read about the Jefferson story on the Working for Change website. They are also circulating a letter calling for him to resign from Congress (along with Republican Representatives Bob Ney, John Doolittle and Senator Conrad Burns.)

2. With all the Republican greedheads piggishly feeding at the troth, there isn't much attention to be paid to one or two Democratic politicians on the make. Probably because the only African-American Congressperson that Fox News and the right-wing media have paid any attention to recently was Cynthia McKinney when she swung on a Capitol Hill cop. Maybe the fact that Rep. Jefferson hasn't actually been indicted yet is a contributing factor in the "paucity of coverage."

So until there's an indictment handed down, Rep. Jefferson is just another Congressman "under investigation." Compared to a big-timer like Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Jefferson and his $400,000 is small potatoes. It's the GOP who know how to shake 'em on down.

Like this guy:

The Justice Department has begun investigating the activities of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, focusing in part on his dealings with a lobbying firm that hired some of his former staff members, sources familiar with the inquiry said.

One source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said subpoenas have been issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6051101881.html

At the end of the day, Bikerdad it's the majority party that's most subject to getting caught with their hands in the till because they ARE the majority party and that's whose palms have to be greased to get things done.

Same as it ever was.

None. You would never expect to hear any of this story on the traditional left biased media esp. NPR and their very biased affiliate





The fact that he is a member of the “Black Caucus” makes it even less “interesting” to the media in general. Certainly some in the media fear the “Caucus” and we can be sure lefties like Jesse J would pounce on anyone who even tried to play this story up.

Maybe you should get a new bias, Ted, work up the gumption to call us liars, or consider an employment opportunity with Colbert as his sidekick. Quark says he heard about it on NPR, a liberal site, and WaPo.

Ted,

Nighttimer, Quarkhead and I all provided sources for this story that appeared in the mainstream media. Were have you been?

Funny I listen to NPR and hear the “Jack” story nearly evey day and never heard this one. And we all know “Dan” is as liberal as they come so if he did mention it it was a very brief comment. In Boston we have WBUR which is one of the most liberal biased stations in the nation and I have never heard the story there.

How about ABC, NBC, CNN. Any big plays there? Front page news? Or page 10.? Repeat coverage or one stroy? Bias plain and simple.

This might be a good research project for you, Ted.

Just to get you started, I'll point out that the Washington Post story was in section A, on page 1.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6050301055.html

Now that's really burying the story.

This is just another attempt to characterize the media as biased toward Republicans when the opposite is so clearly true. Progressive websites have covered this issue for several months. Others have pointed out several instances of this coverage. Truthout.org included it in a discussion of congressional corruption last year. The article has apparently be dropped from their website but is preserved here in this Googlle cache:

CNN took note on May 4th and May 16. That kind of "bias" is called framing through selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration. Every American news outlet does it, including jingo outlets you like to believe don't operate with the desire to transfer salience for conservative audiences and reinforcing that salience to maintain ratings/profits.

Ted, you're just straight up, plain and simple wrong here. Everyone is telling you the same thing, this received quite wide media coverage, as wide as it deserved.

A minute on Google will give you multiple Washington post articles, FOXnews articles, ABC reporting, several MSNBC stories, and dozens of smaller newpapers and outlets taking it off the wire.

If you wish to continue to insist 'total paucity' of coverage, then it just becames clear that the problem here is not with the media, but with Ted.

I don't know if mentioning it (among a slew of Republicans) counts as "coverage".


I cannot vouch for NPR since I did not hear it (on the Weekend edition).

Jefferson is mentioned on Working for Change after "Duke" Cunningham, Kyle Foggo, Bob Ney and Conrad Burns, even though he may have received more money than all the rest put together ($400,000) outside of Cunningham and his were straight up bribes, not campaign donations or perks. The man (Jefferson) had $90,000 in cash in a freezer in his office!



Well, at least there is a story there. It's subheadline is "Probe of La. Democrat Provides Fodder for GOP"--glossing over the fact that this is at least as bad as any scandal on the Republican side outside of Cunningham.



It's typical to get $400,000 in cash? I'd like to see other examples of this "typical" behavior (outside of Cunningham who is obviously a scumbag).



Well, Representative Jefferson was the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF). Announcement by Jefferson in 2001 At least he claimed to be (I couldn't find anything going back to 2001 on the CBCF's website, but he was certainly not President in 2003). So that news is old, but perhaps not incorrect.

Now he's apparently much less important there, relegated to the "Partners and Sponsors" page: link.



Right. Got it. Both Brett Pfeffer and Vernon Jackson pled guilty to bribing Jefferson, but it's still up in the air if the Congressman actually is guilty of receiving it. Do I have that straight?

I agree that compared to Cunningham, Jefferson is smaller in scale. He is not smaller in guilt, however. He is definitely small potatoes when it comes to media coverage however.

It should not matter what party these crooks belong to. These cases should all merit equal air time.

The good news. The congressional ethics panel will launch investigation into three, count them, three congressmen.


The really good news? It's on the "front page" of WaPo's online site.

And the bad news?


It took a Democratic congressman to break the logjam in the ethics panel.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

Ranking Democrat Alan B. Mollohan left the panel after it was discovered he has his own ethics problems. He was replaced with Howard L. Berman and now the investigations are moving forward.

Berman is breaking the "logjam" which was caused by Mollohan, a Democrat.

So it did take a Democrat to break the Democrat-created logjam.

This is a positive development, all in all, and hopefully will clear out some of the dead wood in Congress--from both parties.

An update:

It looks as though Jefferson was caught on tape taking a $100,000 bribe..

Source

Kudos reframing history. It is as good a device as fingering Murtha for the Pentagon’s failure to plan for reconstruction.

It took a Democratic scandal to break a Republican logjam, you mean. Following the 2004 presidential and congressional elections the GOP "proposed changing their rules ... to allow members indicted by state grand juries to remain in a leadership post" on behalf of DeLay. (Link) A few weeks after the GOP proposed making two changes DeLay asked his fellow congressmen to reverse course. The House allowed the rule stripping Republicans of leadership posts when indicted to stand, but went ahead and changed procedures for investigating members. When ethics committee members voted along party lines an investigation would automatically begin 45 days after the vote. The new rule requires a majority to vote in favor of an investigation for one to take place. Democrats refused to join Republicans in accommodating DeLay and walked away from committee meetings.

Mollohan stepped down as he should have. However, the 109th Republican Congress amended procedures to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct when they decided a majority vote was necessary to begin an ethics investigation. I’m afraid blaming Mollohan for the face-saving measure Republicans adopted takes a greater imagination than I possess, especially when you consider the fact that Mollohan would've been investigated with or without his vote had the rules stayed the same. Thanks to Jefferson House GOP members can broach the idea of investigating one of their own.

Lesly,

My point was that Mollohan was holding up investigations so that his party could use this as an election issue. "Climate of corruption" remember?

Although Mollohan made a big stink about the Ethics Committee amendment which could have allowed the Majority party (or the ranking Minority member) to block investigations, once those restrictions were lifted the Committee did not meet for almost six months. When they did meet, the Committee could only agree to revive the ten year old investigation of Jim McDermott.

Now that Mollohan is gone, the process is back to working again. Mollohan, in my view, was the problem and now we may know why...

1) How much, if anything, have you heard about this scandal before, and from what media sources?

Local and national ABC morning news covered it. That's what I watch over coffee and guitar practice.

2) What accounts for the apparent paucity of coverage?

BD, if you haven't figured it out by now, it is your personal perception of reality that accounts for the apparent paucity of coverage. Very little research has proven the perception to be erroneous, unless you care to refute the findings.

You know there is a difference between FRONT page big play stories and ones that get page 10 mention once and then die. Here is a new one (Democrat crook).
Lets see how mush air and print space it gets.

Bribery allegedly caught on tape
Court filing says congressman hid cash in freezerBy Allan Lengel By Matthew Barakat, Associated Press |
May 22, 2006
WASHINGTON -- US Representative William Jefferson, the subject of a 14-month bribery investigation, was videotaped accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from a Virginia investor who was wearing an FBI wire, according to an affidavit released yesterday.


http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washingt...caught_on_tape/