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Congress isn't off the hook

The bribes that U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham admits taking from defense contractors are so brazen and so repulsive that the quizzical looks on Capitol Hill don't get the job done anymore.

Take Rep. Bill Young, the Indian Shores Republican who was House Appropriations chairman when Cunningham was getting rich. Young said Tuesday he will review defense contracts to make "doubly sure that anything shaky is not going to stay in" and then added: "It's hard to believe. I always thought Duke was a really straight arrow."

Not to pick on Young, but does no one take notice anymore when a colleague is stuffing $2.4-million in his pocket while helping direct $243-million in contracts to two defense businesses? Did the fact that he was living in Washington on a defense company's yacht, named Duke-Stir, not raise even an eyebrow?

Monday's plea deal for the eight-term California congressman, which was accompanied by his resignation, outlines a trail so corrupt as to be an assault on the senses. The home he sold two years ago to a defense contractor at a laughably inflated price may have triggered the criminal investigation, but that transaction was only a down payment for his congressional services. The list goes one: a Rolls Royce, resort vacations, Persian rugs, silver candelabras, $1,500 earrings, a $2,000 graduation party for his daughter, a $7,200 19th-century French commode. You get the picture.

Cunningham, a Vietnam War fighter pilot, will forfeit most of his ill-gotten gains and may ultimately land in prison. But the institution he leaves behind cannot pretend to be cleansed. Leaving aside the investigations that have proved increasingly discomforting to the Republican Party and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, this is a stain on representative democracy. This was one California congressman on one appropriations subcommittee pushing for two defense companies that paid him $2.4-million for his troubles. As economies of corruption go, that puts Washington on a scale with Nigeria or Bangladesh.

Congress already is held in low regard by most Americans, and Cunningham's admissions only confirm their worst suspicions. If Congress is ever to clean up its act, it will need more than vague assurances and puzzled looks.

[Last modified December 2, 2005, 01:13:14]