The ol' Favor Game pops up in Congress

| The New Mexican

6/23/2008 - 6/24/08

There's something cyclical about shady politics — which should come as no surprise: Control of our country also tends to run in cycles. The party with the power is the party with the perks, as Danny Kaye might've said in one of his classic cinematic spoofs — and the party out of power is the party with the plaint.

The editorial "we" have often shaken our heads at Republican corruption, remarking that it's, well, behavior you might expect from Democrats.

But during the GOP heyday in the White House and on Capitol Hill, the country watched one elephant after another exposed for selling sacred honor for mere money — usually in denominations far greater than those the donkeys got when they had the chance.

Now, with Democrats holding only the slightest majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives, but with high hopes of increasing those margins, we're treated to a bipartisan mini-spectacle of ill-disguised groveling for money.

North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad, it turns out, got a nice discount on interest when he refinanced his beach house not far from Washington, then another $10,000 off his loan feeds for an apartment building back home.

And who was so nice as to grant that fine Democrat financial favors ordinary families can't get? The head man at Countrywide Financial.

So here's a member of the Senate Finance Committee, who should have been helping draft rules against Countrywide's fast-and-loose playing with "subprime" home loans — behavior contributing to the housing-mortgage crisis — owing favors to the company's boss.

A few others, including Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Clinton Cabinet members Donna Shalala and Richard Holbrooke, as well as Republican Alphonso Jackson, lately the secretary of housing in the Bush administration, also got special deals from Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide.

All will deny that the favors had anything to do with their actions, or lack thereof, benefiting Mozilo and his company. Some will deny ever having talked with Mozilo personally — and that part might be true; financial grubwork is often left to underlings.

So maybe not much will come of this coziness. But politics' fragrance becomes all the more repulsive.

And speaking of special treatment, The New Mexican's Steve Terrell came up with a column last Thursday about Rep. Tom Udall's travel hither and yon: a hundred thousand bucks' worth of trips to England, to Finland, to China and to the Mexican Riviera, among other destinations.

He and his wife, Jill Cooper, were guests of the Aspen Institute — an impressive organization whose leadership list reads a little like that of the (gasp) Trilateral Commission, and which is supported by many of our country's fanciest foundations.

The foundations themselves might be above reproach — but they get all kinds of corporate contributions. Not for our congressional-education programs, the institute was quick to tell Terrell. But money leaks into the Colorado-based bunch from business executives — who aren't bashful about calling in favors.

The representative's handlers emphasized to Terrell that Udall never misses a congressional vote while on these jaunts — and they made a big deal about the trips not costing the taxpayers a dime.

But what about the institute picking up the tab? What, the representative's opponents might ask — if they weren't also up to their necks in largesse — do the benefactors get out of it?

The Udalls, and their many Capitol Hill colleagues carried from one enlightening event to another, appear insulated from any real influence-buying — but what about perceived commerce in, uh, persuasion?

Our congressman, who soon might become our senator, should weigh carefully his desire for learning, which he's certain to gain, against the chance, however slight, of smudging his squeaky-clean image.