John Tierney: “in partial response to my colleague's last statements, it is The Wall Street Journal that says, it is the odor. It is…”

“in partial response to my colleague's last statements, it is The Wall Street Journal that says, it is the odor. It is the Rocky Mountain News that says it is hypocrisy. The Christian Science Monitor calls it hubris, and the New York Times says it is autocratic behavior, and the San Diego Union Tribune simply calls it disgraceful. It turns out that there are a lot of different ways to describe the House Republicans' ethical challenges. When the Republicans took over Congress in 1994, they promised to usher in a new era of politics. For years they had tried to make the case that Democrats were corrupt, and in a new Republican era they promised to clean house and change the rules to make Congress more accountable to the people that we represent. Well, they changed the rules. This year they changed the rules to prevent the ethics committee from doing its job, and they tried and tried and unfortunately failed to change the rules of their own caucus to allow indicted Members to retain their leadership offices. Mr. Speaker, it is time to reinstate the ethics rules in this House. It is time that Republicans join the Democrats in supporting the Mollohan resolution, so that people can get a fair hearing, but it is done within a body that is operating properly. ____________________”