A conversation with Matt Margolis

by George Dienhart

Generally, nothing makes you feel more like a dinosaur than talking to someone that is more youthful and energetic. The one possible exception is when you are talking to someone that is more youthful and energetic about his or her new book. In this case, I was talking to Matt Margolis about "Caucus of Corruption: The Truth about the New Democratic Majority" the book he co-authored with Mark Noonan.

Let me elaborate. I asked him to compare the Clinton administration scandals to the current Bush administration's scandals. Matt prefaced his answer with the fact that he is a little young to remember the Clinton administration. It was, as he said, "before my time" My first political memories are of the fall of the Nixon administration. I guess that makes me an official dinosaur. A Georgeasauros Tyranicus, if you will.  Strike that- it reminds me too much of George Soros...

Well as my aging fingers struggled to take notes fast enough to keep up with his young and agile mind, I have to admit I was impressed. Matt is young, but he has launched a couple of pretty successful websites. I'm familiar with Blogs for Bush and GOPBloggers.com. In fact, back when I was blogging on my own, most of my traffic came from the B4B blogroll.

Even more impressive is his book, Caucus of Corruption. In it, the authors remind the readers just how corrupt the Democratic Party has been over the years. It's material that the mainstream media won't touch. We all remember William Jefferson's alleged refrigerator full of money. We don't remember his alleged National Guard escort out of Katrina ravaged New Orleans. The mainstream media had lost interest. It's no fun holding a Democrat accountable for his alleged crimes.

The book is full of stories like this. It's a veritable hall of shame not only for the Democrats that are referenced, but also for the mainstream media. It is big media that ignores these stories in order to crucify people like Scooter Libby. Why cover a real scandal, when you can manufacture one that plays to the liberal base? Matt thinks he has an answer. "I think the biggest problem is people who support them (Liberal Democrats) really don't get it. They just want the Democrats in power."

He's right. More than a few liberals can't even annunciate what they dislike about Republicans. They fall back on Republicans are "stupid" or "mean". Even liberals who do keep up on politics will defend Jefferson and his magic freezer. They have even been making excuses for Ted Kennedy since his ill fated drive out to Lake Chappaquiddick .

Why now, though? Why were the Democrats so successful in making the Republicans out to be more corrupt that the Democrats? In the end it is up to the voter to analyze whether he buys what the media is selling, or not. A quick look at last Novembers election results prove that the voter bought the DNC perspective lock stock and barrel.
"I think the whole thing of using ethics has been going on for a while. I think Bush's moral stand- liberals don't like that."  Matt has a point here. This went beyond framing Scooter Libby or obsessing over 7 words in a State of the Union address. "This is also kind of a payback, Clinton can fire 98 attorneys, but Bush fires 8, and it's a scandal".

That, I think, is the heart of the problem. The Democrats were too effective at ignoring our problems and channeling an irrational personal hatred towards the Bush administration. "The party that is out of power continues to go after the party that is in power." added Margolis. "Anytime the Democrats can go after Bush, they make a mountain out of a molehill." I followed up on his answer. To me it doesn't seem like it's only the party that is out of power. Margolis reconsidered. "Republicans should have done more to go after the blatant Democratic scandals. You have to fight fire with fire. What has disappointed me lately is that Republicans won't come to the defense of their own. I don't know if they are afraid of losing elections..."

Margolis is quick to point out that ethics are for everyone, not just the opposing political party.  Any congressman (or woman) should be "gone after" if they are corrupt. Good and honest sentiment. He was in no way defending any legitimately bad behavior on the part of the Republicans.

I was curious about Margolis's opinions on a few things that are not covered in the book. I asked him to share his thoughts on the recently elected, Democrat controlled congress.  "They made a lot of promises and then didn't deliver on them. They have proven that once you give them the opportunity to lead, that they don't know how to."

"They don't know how to" sums up the liberal leadership pretty well, when you think of it. They don't know how to pacify the Iraqi insurgents, so they want to give up and bug out. They don't know how to solve the immigration problem, so we get the Kennedy bill that has recently been resurrected in the senate. The "leadership" they are providing has resulted in record low polling numbers on the congressional approval ratings polls. It seems that the average voter may be figuring out that Democratic leadership is defined by higher taxes, and more political scandals

Margolis disagrees with me on this point. He believes that attention is not the problem. "The attention of the people is not the issue. The problem is, you only hear about corruption on the Republican side of the aisle. The media has to do something. They have to report better on corruption within the Democratic Party."

The mainstream media probably won't answer Margolis's call to actually report fairly on both political parties.  I wanted to know how Republicans can help reform their reputation, and hold Democrats responsible for their actions. Margolis believes he may have already started this process. "I believe my book could be the first step. Maybe they (the voter) will look at the information in the book and treat it the same as if it was about Republicans."

There is a lot of good information in the book, however, I am afraid that it will be lost in the sea of political books recently released. There are already a couple of prominent books, recently published about the Clinton era scandals that preceded Margolis's political memory.  There will be more as we inch toward Super Duper Tuesday, when focus will shift primarily to the presumed presidential nominees.  Hopefully, the public won't forget it about the lessons contained within the scandals he has documented.

This book does prove it is worthy of the shelf space it would occupy on your bookcase. The book recounts Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid's involvement in the Jack Abramoff scandal, plenty on the Clintons, and some interesting tidbits on Speaker Pelosi. The book also serves as a reminder to big media. All political scandals need to covered, and all crooked politicians need to exposed. The press is supposed to expose scandal, regardless of party affiliation. It's a lesson well taught within Caucus of Corruption's pages.

Comments

[pete speer]

Without downgrading the Clinton scandals, it seems to me that the present administration has a plateful of problems as well, from the failure to adequately plan for the Iraq War to the justification based on intelligence for the war itself.