Congressional Animal House: Road Trip!

Just when I thought Congress had turned a corner when John Boehner of Ohio, who has never put an earmark into a bill, became House Majority Leader, it turns out he has his own pet addiction: Road Trips!

We all recall that scene in the movie Animal House when the pressures of reality begin to interrupt the delirious round of parties and pranks---usually at final exams or around Spring Break. Time for some tripping, and not on illegal substances!

Jeffrey Birnbaum of the Washington Post has some of the major-league travellers and lo & behold! my very own Congressman Bob Wexler, whose office abuts my wife's real estate office here in Boca, has taken over $350,000 in trips and is one of the largest recipients of travel goodies in Congress! This will not hurt him much with his Boca constituency, consisting in large part of cruise-line and frequent-flyer retirees. Wexler actually put forward a Social Security reform bill last year when Nancy Pelosi forbade any Democratic alternative to the Bush [who never did submit a reform bill] campaign to partly privatize social security. I'm sure Wexler has canvassed much of Europe and also Israel in his research on alternate versions of an American social pension plans. Katherine Harris, who is not going to be a US Senator, managed to take a three-day "Restoration Weekend" at the Breakers in Palm Beach, sponsored by Conservative guru-man David Horowitz. Her schedule for her afternoons had "shopping, golf, yadda, yadda....] and her original travel form omitted the trip's sponsor, the "Center for the Study of Popular Culture." Lotsa heavy lifting in that schedule, I'll bet.

Charlie Rangel also broke a rule when he, his wife and son all went to SURPRISE! Cuba on an "ecology" junket. He was evidently sponsored by a Fidel-loving constituent---didn't know they had that many in Manhattan!

House rules permit sponsors of lawmakers' trips to cover the cost of only one accompanying relative. A Rangel spokesman said the office had not been aware of the rule.

Yes, Charlie has only been in Congress fifteen or twenty terms or so. He wouldn't know about tiny details like HOW MANY RELATIVES HE CAN HAVE ON HIS COMMIE JUNKETS!

A San Diego defense firm named General Atomics, who build and sell the Predator defense drones, evidently had the novel insight that Congressmen and staffers are great business outreach reps, as the company's CEO explained trips to Turkey and Australia:

"[It's] useful and very helpful, in fact, when you go down and talk to the government officials, to have congressional people go along and discuss the capabilities of [the plane] with them," Tom Cassidy, chief executive of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the company's aircraft-manufacturing subsidiary, told the center [for Public Integrity].

Gosh, I'll bet it is, and of course, I'll also bet it doesn't hurt the Predator's in-country marketing strategy inside the Beltway! When Defense appropriations hearings are held, I'll bet the Predator gets a free pass from members who have been helping market them overseas! Wonder if Randy Cunningham was part of their business outreach Mission Statement? Next question. Was it bi-partisan? Yes, it was!

The center's study illustrates how widespread the practice has become, for both Democrats and Republicans. Of the 25 individual lawmakers who accepted more than $120,000 worth of travel during the period, 17 were Democrats. Of the two dozen congressional offices on which private trip sponsors spent the most money, 15 were Republican, the study said.

I guess the Kossacks and HuffnPuff screamers can't blame it all on Delay and Abramoff. A brief nose-holding excursion through some lefty blogs finds the usual self-promotion [Sirota] and fixation on Republican wrong-doers [Muckraker & AirAmerica]. But, as the Baltimore Examiner notes:

let’s not miss two fundamentally important points about these trips. First, the investigators found numerous examples of a tactic familiar to congressional veterans: Take a three-day trip to give one speech in a desired location. Find a friendly lobbyist or advocacy group to pay for your trip, then deliver the speech. Spend the balance of the three days seeing the sights. This is a con job, to be sure, but it is a bipartisan part and parcel of the corrupt culture that gives rise to the Incumbistan Complex inside the Beltway.

Finally, to be fair, there are good reasons for Senators, Congressmen and staffers to come to foreign countries or visit on-site examples of what they are crafting the nation's public business about. When I was at the Embassy in Saudi Arabia, every other week had a Codel or Staffdel flying into Jidda, and I was the guide for many in excursions around town [the gold suq was the most popular] and had interesting discussions around the ambassador's dinner table with Ted Kennedy, Jacob Javits and lesser but influential House types like Clem Zablocki and Steve Solarz. Saudi Arabia was and is an important place to visit to understand US national interests in a comprehensive fashion.

But the temptations of power and success often guide these solons and their amanuenses beyond reasonable boundaries into con junkets, as DeLay at St. Andrew's and other examples demonstrate. Congrats to the Center for Public Integrity, American Public Media, and Medill at Northwestern [where my nephew just won a $40,000 scholarship to study journalism]. I hope the fallout from this exposure sharpens the focus and removes temptations from the more grasping of our nation's legislators.