Innocent Until Assinated by the Media?
Posted by: Aaron Park | 09/02/2007 4:41 PM
3 1/2 years of investigations, no indictment
Your house gets raided and files relating to the associate that got you into this investigation in the first place are left behind. Of course, your young daughter is terrorized during the whole ordeal and no one cares.
You are a Republican Congressman and three of your colleagues resigned in disgrace, two of whom went to jail, so therefore you are presumed guilty.
And so it goes, instead of idealogical attacks which had never worked in the past... the tactics change to throwing it through the fan and alleging corruption. John Doolittle did the same thing we do in my office, pay relatives for consulting... that's the worst of it.
Jack Abramoff took down Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham and Tom DeLay. All three of them went down within a year of discovery, but not John Doolittle. You have to ask yourself that question to be intellectually honest. (Don't tell me it is because John Doolittle is so powerful, Ney and DeLay were at the highest level of GOP leadership when they went down.)
Larry Craig was forced out of office in a week after being exposed for being a pervert. Mark Foley was forced out of office several weeks after it was revealed that he was out of control sexually.
John Doolittle is still in office.
Could it be that John is innocent? Could it be because the government has egg on its' face over this investigation and they refuse to exonerate John because they will look bad?
"If the glove don't fit, you must acquit"...
The sad fact is reading the bee commentary and the hyperbolae of Eric Kerry-Egland for example, it looks like other people's ambitions are at work to deny John Doolittle due process. (after 3 1/2 years no less)
The fact that the media has so much power that they can take down a congressman by simply attaching his name to every negative Republican story is absurd. Even more absurd is when Republicans contribute by skewering that congressman before he has had his day in court.
Women's right to vote didn't exist until they fought for it. Blacks rights for equality didn't happen until...
Eighteen years in Congress has changed John Doolittle. He has gone native, becoming the big spending DC insider he once despised. And guilty or not, the fact is he cannot win reelection, a fact many Republicans have come to accept, though some are still in denial. As Jeff Flint noted today, Doolittle barely won last time, before the FBI raid and before the Democrats took control of Congress and gained the fundraising advantage.
Aaron, everything you say may still be true, and that does not undercut my argument one bit. If Congressman Doolittle is not able to be re-elected against Charlie Brown, which is the case, then he should step aside. It might not be fair, but it is still the facts.
That is why, by the way, that I argued in the Bee article today, and it appears Congressman Cole of the NRCC agreed, that John needs 100% vindication to have any chance.