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Liberal Democrats are trying very hard to look "tough" on Congressional misconduct. After all, one of their major political platforms this fall in an attempt to regain Congress has been the "culture of corruption" which they claim surrounds only the Republican Party. Too bad it seems like every time they come up with a new campaign tactic based on what the other side of the isle is doing (perceived or real) they get caught wrapped up in doing the same thing.

The latest? Congressman William Jefferson (D-LA) caught red handed taking bribe money and found with literally a cool $90,000 in his freezer. He also refused to comply with subpoenas, which prompted a raid on his offices to gather the requested evidence.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, officially asked him to resign his position on the Ways and Means Committee. Jefferson refused telling Pelosi to essentially take a hike.

But still the left is a buzz about how great of a job the Democrats are doing attacking corruption. And they complain about how the Republicans continue to be mired in the "culture of corruption". Every time a liberal is caught doing something the left brings up Abramoff and his ties to Republicans always conveniently forgetting to mention that Democrats are waste deep in donor money from Abramoff clients which many have scrambled to return. But this is still their standard defense.

Point out William Jefferson and they rail about Tom DeLay and his corruption but never mention to you that DeLay has far less evidence against him for what he is accused of than Jefferson. DeLay may still be found guilty and the Democrats had better hope that he is to continue their clarion call.

They complain about Randy "Duke" Cunningham who will be spending a lot of time in jail after being found guilty of bribery charges and was guilty as sin. They also complain about Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) who, like DeLay is accused, looks possibly guilty, but has not been found so.

They claim that there are far more Republicans that are corrupt than Democrats and thus that their charges hold. So this is really what their defense is, "Ok, we've got a few bad eggs but the Republicans are worse!"

Who do they forget to tell you about however? Well, since just being accused of something means that you are part of the culture of corruption as far as the Democrats are concerned let's run down the list shall we?

They forget Cynthia McKinney (D) who assaulted a Capitol Hill police officer daring to stop her after she tried to avoid security and then cried racism.

They forget to mention Alan B. Mollohan (D-WV) who had a bizarre spike in his own net worth and has been accused (not convicted but neither have most of the Republicans cited) of gross misconduct.

They forget to mention Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Dick "Our Troops Are Nazis" Durbin (D-IL) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) who all have criminal referrals to the Justice Department with regards to leaking classified information.

And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Make no mistake. This piece is not to defend criminal Republicans. Anyone that thinks that it is has not spent much time actually reading all the times I rail against the very moderate Republican Party and their far too numerous violations of Constitutional law. There are a lot of criminals in Congress and all of them should be prosecuted and thrown out of office and directly into jail.

There are criminals on both sides of the isle.

What Pelosi and other liberals want to do however is get the Democrats caught with hand in cookie jar that are the most indefensible out of the way while keeping the rest as low key as possible. Most of you probably didn't even know about Mollohan, Rockefeller, Durbin or Wyden until I just told you. And that is good news for the left. Because if they can get Jefferson the Hell out of Dodge before November they can go back to complaining about the Republican "culture of corruption" all the while hopping Mullohan, Rockefeller, Durbin, Wyden, McKinney or some other Democrat is not put into the spot light for corruption.

So for now Jefferson is their sacrificial lamb. He's the one in the hot seat. But the truth is the Democrats do not give one iota about cleaning up corruption - until the spotlight is on them. Then they rush straight for the camera and put on one Hell of a show.

About the Author

J.J. Jackson is the owner and Editor at Large of American Conservative Politics - The Land of the Free and American Conservative Daily. He is also the lead designer for The Right Things - Conservative Political T-shirts and American Infidel T-shirts