Corrupt member

Jack Abramoff’s next endeavor: writing a commentary on the Torah. The All-Loophole Torah, no doubt.

Noted ethicist Newt Gingrich had this to say about the Abramoff scandal: “You can’t have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member.” Heh, he said corrupt member, heh.

It’s interesting that Alito... hold on a second...

Corrupt member. Heh.

... that Alito chose in his opening statement to rehash some old class resentments. Considering that he’s pretending that if confirmed he’ll just drop his opinions – if those are his opinions and he’s not gonna confirm or deny that they are – here he is talking about how he worked his poor Italian ass off to get to Princeton and when he got there it was full of damned hippies!, “very privileged people behaving irresponsibly” as opposed to the “good sense and the decency of the people back in my community.”

Actually, that period may be the key to Alito. He really did work his poor Italian ass off to join the ruling elite, this modern-day Rastignac, and just as he was poised to do so, its offspring experienced a Vietnam-fueled crisis of confidence and began to question the very legitimacy of the power so nearly in his grasp. He’s spent the rest of his career trying to bolster that power, making the intellectual and legal case for its legitimacy.

Corrupt member. Heh. Heh.

(Update: oh dear, it seems the whole quote is “You can’t have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member or a corrupt staff.”)