A Bit of Evenhandedness

Today the Senate attached an amendment to the ethics reform bill that would strip “ethics challenged” members of Congress of their federal pensions. If passed by the House and signed into law by the president, the bill would only apply to future violators of Senate and House ethics rules. The new ethics rules are a complete overhaul in comparison to the GOP rules, which remained relatively unchanged since 1994. Like the Constitution, the law is a bit vague on what it would consider an offense worthy of pension suspension. But the basic premise of the amendment would consider offenses such as bribery and conspiracy worthy of losing the tax payer funded “retirement plan.”

The measure, introduced by John Kerry passed the Senate 87-0 today. The bill is a response by the Democrats due to the past 12 years of Republican corruption that has permeated on all levels of the federal government. But one peculiarity of the bill is that it only applies to future violators. If the Democrats wanted to make a colossal impact on the system itself, they would have been inclined to have the bill take effect retroactively. For example, ex-Congressman “Duke” Cunningham collects $64,000 annually from his federal pension, even though he confessed to bribery charges by pleading guilty. At least future violators will be deterred, as it typically is not in a Congressman’s best interest to throw away his “pocket change.”

In other news, the vault on the Gerald Ford interviews has been completely unlocked, especially in regard to his opinions on past presidents. For over 25 years, Ford gave interviews to a local Michigan paper in which he gave rather pointed opinions of those who preceded him in the Oval Office. Like his taped interviews with Bob Woodrow of the Washington Post, the interviews were only to be released after his demise. The most unsympathetic outlook was directed towards Jimmy Carter (whom he compared to Warren G. Harding), who in 1981, Ford called a “poor president.” He adjusted his view of Carter in 1998, when he stated that Carter was a better president than some were led to believe.

Ford also believed that Reagan was overrated, at least in concern to opinions believing he ended the Cold War via an arms build up. He believed that NATO and the Marshall Plan (aid to Europe after WWII ended) were key contributors to ending the Cold War. Many would beg to differ, including myself that it was Mikhail Gorbachev who was responsible for ending the Cold War. But that point is for another time and place. Surprisingly he was rather fickle on the presidency of Bill Clinton, who he called average. Who escaped the ex-president’s criticisms? Dwight D. Eisenhower, a moderate Republican, much like himself, was his favorite president, at least in a policy making role. Even though this was a man who committed the nation to MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) during the Cold War. Basically, if the Soviets or the U.S. fired upon one another, both countries would simply take the destruction and move on. But again, that is another discussion all in itself.