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It is about time that someone focused on the fact that both parties are responsible for the mess in Washington and that ethics reform proposals in recent months have only served late night talk show hosts. Repairing the damage done as well as improving public opinion of government is no small task and cannot begin soon enough. While it is easier for Mitt Romney to approach this subject rather than his Senate rivals with their time in Washington, others like Giuliani and a few 2nd tier candidates are not officially connected to Washington and could just as easily have brought it up. It is a subject not frequently discussed and certainly not an issue that gets addressed. Score a few points for Romney in drawing attention to it.

“Washington is busy pointing fingers, assigning blame, and spending too much money. There is too much talk and too little action,” he writes in his letter, which will appear in full page ads Monday in New Hampshire’s Manchester Union-Leader and the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.

“The blame, we must admit, does not belong to just one party. If we’re going to change Washington, Republicans have to put our own house in order.”

Of course after hearing statements about cleaning up Washington there will be those who want to kick butt and take names or in some way have targets to ridicule rather than be concerned about actually getting the job done. Maybe that is because it helps sell papers. Here’s a brief example.

“The party expects leaders to abide by higher ethical standards as they are elected to office in Washington,” Romney said at a news conference at the Chicago Club. “I know all people make mistakes, but not all people are the president or the senator or the congressman, and we expect those who represent the country to abide by a higher level of conduct.”

Romney says he’d clean up D.C. — but who?
September 23, 2007
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter
To whom was he referring?

“I am not referring to anyone specifically,” Romney said. “Over the last 15, 20 years in Washington, you’ve seen a pattern of people standing before a microphone saying, ‘Everyone makes mistakes.’”

Does he mean Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho? Should he resign after pleading guilty to soliciting a male police officer for sex in Minneapolis?

Sure, give us the names. Bring up Larry Craig and pound individual examples rather than focus on the job of correcting the decay of government ethics. The witch hunt mentality may provide the single largest obstacle to cleaning up Washington. By placing true and effective methods in place to oversee government action with real transparency and enforcement the job could get done and the morbid curiosity of the public would be satisfied as those who stray from ethical standards would be held to account. The past and current effort of only placing blame as it relates to party has not been helpful. It ends up that no one is held to account except in extreme cases that benefit one part or the other and media revenues.

At the very least, Mitt Romney has introduced ethics into the campaign discussion and has given everyone a chance to address the problem before the election, not just after, as has been the case for a long time.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

09/27/2007 topic update from Michelle Malkin 

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 11:28 am and is filed under Public Affairs, Bush, wordpress, Politics, campaign, election, GOP, Democrats, romney, Congress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.