Joke of the Day

"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

Office of Congressional Ethics

It was one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “drain the swamp” proposals when Democrats took control of Congress: creation of an independent ethics watchdog to sweep aside the “culture of corruption” she says prevailed under Republicans.

But while the new Office of Congressional Ethics is finally in operation — a year after the House authorized it and more than two years after Pelosi was sworn in as speaker — the office has little to show for its work and is encumbered by layers of secrecy.

The most open and ethical Congress ever.

Pelosi called for creation of the OCE when she was sworn in as speaker in January 2007, but it took until October of that year for a special task force chaired by Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.) to flesh out the details for an independent ethics office. Several more months of haggling ensued, and the plan met fierce resistance from senior lawmakers such as Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), who saw the outside office as an affront to the congressional tradition of self-policing.

As opposed to the affront to all things decent and moral that is our so-called representative government.

From the Unabridged Dictionary of Hopenchange:

change (verb): 1. to take what's working well and destroy it 2. to take what's broken and make it worse