Words mean things…

…and it's pretty clear that Dennis Hastert has no idea what the word 'scandal' means...

"Last week's scandal was Deep Throat. This week's scandal was Dean's throat…"

Deep Throat? All the juicy bits of that were rung out decades ago, Denny, and as for Dr. Dean, well the truth isn't always welcome, and it may not always be presented with grace, but it's never a scandal.

Nope, this is a scandal, one fitting for the



Remember the brouhaha around the $23 billion dollar leasing agreement between the Air Force and Boeing for some refueling aircraft that critics claimed were neither needed nor suitable?

It seemed to have been largely written off as a matter of collusion between Pentagon civilians and the Boeing executive suite in Chicago (and some related scandal about cross-pollination between the two) but recent reporting in the Washington Post on the heels of an departmental IG report that casts a wider net, reaching the White House itself. In fact, Bush seems to have applied the personal pressure required to close the deal...

The Pentagon's leadership agreed to back the project last year despite objections from a few members of Congress and initially the Office of Management and Budget, after President Bush personally asked his aides to work out a deal, according to a senior administration official and internal Boeing communications unearthed in a congressional investigation.

How deep is the scandal? How overt was the quid pro quo between the avaricious fund-raiser Bush and the deep pockets of Boeing? We do know that the Chicago company has long been a generous contributor to Republican campaigns, and that the last cycle was not exception, topped off with a healthy contribution to Bush's inauguration, generally viewed as an excessively lavish spectacle for a country whose Army is at war. The final answer about how deeply entrenched the Bush administration, already among, if not the, the most scandal ridden in our nation's history, in yet another story has been carefully excised from the record...

In the copy of the report obtained by The Washington Post, 45 sections were deleted by the White House counsel's office to obscure what several sources described as references to White House involvement in the lease negotiations and its interaction with Boeing. The Pentagon separately blacked out 64 names and many e-mails. It also omitted the names of members of Congress, including some who pressured the Pentagon to back the deal.

In fairness, I admit that if those Congress members were named, I'd fully expect folks I support and admire among them, including Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Norm Dicks, and likely more. They, of course, have a local interest. The Pentagon's in D.C. and Boeing is in Chicago, but the jobs are right here in the Upper Left, and while we expect the Executive branch, via DoD, to cut the very best deal possible on the very best gear available for our fighting forces, we expect our representatives in the legislative branch to fight like hell for our jobs. It's part of the give and take of governance.

The Executive branch, of course, is exempt from such parochial considerations. The President is the only officer of government elected nationally in his own right. As such, he is responsible only to the national interest, which in this case seems to have been suborned to financial interests, and that's a scandal.

Hey, prove me wrong! Release the 45 sections and all the names. Bet our guys can take the heat. Bet yours can't...