The latest in hypocrisy from partisan Republican Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett is being exhibited in the kerfuffle between his campaign and GOP rival Congressman Jim Gerlach.Allegheny County Republican Party Chair Jim Roddey was quoted in the Post-Gazette last week regarding the propriety of current Western PA US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan remaining in her office if she were to run for Congress:
"The county GOP leader said he did not see any ethical qualms with exploring a run while sitting as the chief federal prosecutor for Western Pennsylvania, and said Ms. Buchanan should step down only if she announces her candidacy." (Post-Gazette 10/9/09)Oh, really? We were very surprised to read that since Roddey's horse in the GOP gubernatorial primary, Tom Corbett, is a sitting prosecutor who is already an announced candidate for office and hasn't resigned.
In fact, Gerlach has been saying for a few months that Corbett should step down for the very same reasons Roddey states Buchanan should resign. Gerlach pointed this out last week in a news release:
"We are glad that Chairman Roddey recognizes the 'ethical qualms' and clear conflict of interest that have existed for at least a month now, beginning on the day Corbett officially announced his campaign for governor," said Scott Migli, campaign manager for the Gerlach for Governor campaign. "We believe the same principle raised in the article applies to Corbett, and that's why we publicly asked for a suspension of his gubernatorial campaign or his resignation because it is very difficult to distinguish how Corbett separates his political investigation during the day from seeking political support at night." (Gerlach Campaign news release 10/9/09)Clearly, this wasn't on the Corbett campaign message, so out comes Roddey's hypocritical clarification yesterday:
"In what can only be described as an intentional deception on the part of your campaign, you took my remarks and tried to deceive people into thinking they were applicable to your Gubernatorial opponent Tom Corbett...I must assume you know that the office of U.S. Attorney is an appointed position, and therefore political activities are restricted. I also assume you know that the state Attorney General position is elected, and therefore has no such restrictions." (Roddey letter to Gerlach 10/12/09)Who are Corbett and Roddey trying to fool? At the time he made his original remarks, Roddey wasn't thinking about the appointed vs. elected distinction. He was stating what many believe is commonsense -- prosecutors should resign to avoid the mingling of politics and prosecutions.
It especially applies to Corbett's candidacy considering he is supposedly investigating Republicans in relation to bonusgate. Perhaps the argument that past Attorney Generals running for governor didn't resign would have credence, except that those AGs weren't running on-going political investigations and prosecutions concurrently with their campaigns.
This is just more of the same hypocrisy from Corbett and his supporters. They want everyone -- the political intelligensia, the media, the voters -- to hold Corbett to a different standard.
House Democrats are felons for using staff to campaign, but not Corbett. (York Daily Record 7/22/08)
2008 opponent John Morganelli is unethical for using an official parking placard (Patriot 8/26/08), but not Corbett's campaign chairperson, Justice Sandra Newman. (Fox 29)
Fundraising in the Capitol is illegal, but not if Corbett does it.
Keeping a promise is important, but not for Corbett if it comes to investigating Republicans. (Williamsport Sun-Gazette 8/18/09)
And now, US Attorney Buchanan should resign, but not Attorney General Corbett.
Until Corbett is held accountable, his hypocrisy will continue. Until Corbett delivers on his promise of "shocking" indictments of Republicans, he is nothing but a partisan, hypocritcal hack.
17 comments:
What would happen to Republicans if there were a Democratic Attorney General as partisan as Tom Corbett?
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/demotivators_2073_1129817
oops here's the link
Once Corbett charges some Republicans, which he will, what are you going to do? Your theory dries up, your reason for being blows away.
Maybe not. I can se it now, the New CasablancaPA: "Partisan candidate Tom Corbett has only charged Republicans and Democrats, but no members of the Green Party. And certainly no Communists!
"How can he be conducting a fair investigation when he's not even subpoeaned any Communists?"
Just indicting some Republicans isn't enough. Corbett has made it very clear that he is going to really hammer them. I think we're going to want this blog to stick around if Corbett doesn't deliver. Remember, Corbett promised shocking:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_612590.html
Lawmaker's Name Surfaces in Probe
Emails obtained by abc27 News and authored by bonusgate defendants show they may have worked on DePasquale's campaign on state time and on state computers.
http://cfc.whtm.com/videoondemand.cfm?id=44720&cat=news,loc
Give it up, none of these posts will make a difference.
See you later in rehabiltation groups and good luck in the future.
I love responding to these cogent and stimulating rebuttals.
In rejecting the category of legislative crimes, we never meant to imply that we also object to classifying degrees of corruption.
However, the latter gradations are exculpatory, making the blunt instrument of ancient law more nuanced and flexible.
We would question the relevance of this issue to crimes, which in my view impose a rigid conceptual frame derived from social engineering onto the legal process to elect Prosecutors to higher office.
I am tired of others raising the excellent point about harsher penalties on the books for assaults on US Attorneys, Attorney General Assistants, and Police Officers.
However, I have never understood the reasoning informing those statutes, which seem to endow the lives of Law Enforcement Elites with more value than those of ordinary citizens.
There is certainly a social benefit in protecting the OAG.
Yet I see no parallelism here with the lives of the accused should make sacrifices for the sins of the entire legislature.
There are a thousand elusive complications to any clash in public spaces within the windmills of our own mind of justice.
Nothing but stupidity and deranged egotism was at fault in these public atrocities of electioneering on the public dole.
But if any one of the participants happened to seek a plea deal they become vultures and turned the entire thing into an OAG breast-beating cause célèbre -- even truth played no role whatever in the events.
Letting these people go through legislation, in my view, simply cushions people in their own subgroups and gives them a damaging sense of false entitlement.
The world of politics will always be a very dangerous place where anyone can cross paths with a psychopath.
The human mind is home territory for Edgar Allan Poe's "imp of the perverse. Surely the charged here have been targeted because of their wrongdoing.
Why, then, is it not denounced as a crime?
Why did those amoral marauders get a free pass in the crimes for time sweepstakes?
The historical injustices suffered by previous fallen politicians such as Vince Fumo should not give infinite latitude to depraved individuals.
I say the law should be blind to political parties, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power.
There should be no specially protected groups of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly, whose physical frailty demands society's care.
Oh my lord, what a fly-flecked pile of horse manures! It's hard to believe that such empty palaver is still being peddled by bloggers with an agenda.
I can still write coherent English.
One can only pity the parents bankrupting themselves for their children to be educated by such chicanery he is boasting on this blog.
My manifesto against judicial toxins into the tiny open jaws of the Attorney General Professoriate.
I may cause uproar at times, but most sensible people, have slowly swung around to my way of thinking.
But airless pockets of pollution clearly still remain here and at Strawberry Square.
This website has more Copyright violations than anything on the Internet.
This is usually $125,000 awarding of fees for every violation, plus one only needs to show the website Owners place them up without permission.
No jury needed and no trial just proof before a Judge.
The difference is Tom Corbett was elected to do a job and should remain and then go on to another job. Mary Beth Buchanan as yet to be elected meter maid in her neighborhood parking garage. There is a difference and there is a record versus rhetoric.
You"rs right.. in the end all these blogs wont mount to a hill of beans . . . Just remember that the love you take is equal to the love you make. PEACE
Maybe guzzardi has an idea
alternating AGs
4 years a partisan Democrat and then 4 years a partisan
Republican. . . could we call that Change you can trust!
Too bad this website wasn't based on a TALE OF TWO CITIES with Mary Beth Buchanan starring as Agnes Morehead. Her black dress would have been so apprpo for the coming season.
Havent you heard. There are no Communists in Pennsylvania...no even in the eastern seaboard. They must all be in Chicago with William Ayers.
I just want all you people to know that Jesus died for your sins was persecuted died and will come again so that you might live life eternally and reign with him forever in heaven. Repent before it is too late. None of these blogs or anything the world has to offer means anything without JESUS.
I am praying for you all and for the return of God to Pennsylvania and the USA.
It is not about living in Heaven for eternity my friend, which may or may not happen.
What is important is to do good deeds today, help out someone or promote someone's success, and make this world a tad better everyday by good deeds.
When you do that, you can live your life today in happiness and never have to worry about the after life.
This is what Jesus taught about living every moment and thanking a greater force of spiritual power for just giving you another day with another breath of life.
Hating others even for their sins will eat your own sprit and seeking revenge will not be satisfaction as one may expect.
Jesus is ok, but his teachings are more important, and you can help someone without anyone telling you how to do it.
Just do it!
If I keep reading about Commies and Jesus on this Website, I am going to start "Communists For Jesus Non-Profit" in the tradition of Commies never making money and churches always being Non-Profits.
Why Fumo and Veon are being persecuted for creating Non-Profits when Mosques, Churches and Synagogues do it every day is beyond me.
It's easy to be a holy man on top of a mountain. The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge.
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