LaHood continues to sidestep ‘earmark’ questions

June 5, 2006
By Billy Dennis

Kudos to C.J. Summers for a spot-on link-laden take-down of Ray LaHood on the issue of “earmarks,” which is what people used to call good old-fashioned pork-barrel spending.

I’ll quote the best paragraphs:

LaHood’s defense is filled with logical fallacies.

First of all, to bring up all the undisputed earmarks and not mention Firefly or Proctor or his association with Cassidy & Associates is the epitome of a red herring. This is like a person caught shoplifing some candy holding up a receipt for the all the other groceries he purchased and saying, see, I’m innocent because look at all the other stuff I did pay for!

Secondly, its a non sequitur to suggest that because he agrees with Copley Press on, say, the Innovation Center that they should therefore endorse his means of funding it. I could give a million examples of this, but lets just take a couple. We all want adequate fire protection in Peoria, but we don’t all agree that a garbage tax is the way to fund it. We are all in favor of urban renewal, but we don’t all agree on using TIF districts to fund that, either.

But most of all, theres this tone about the article like he just cant understand why people are questioning him on this. Is he really so out of touch that he doesn’t realize the electorate is cynical and jaded? Can he really not see that his earmarks at least give the appearance of there being a quid pro quo? In defending himself, he should at least acknowledge that much. He should say, Hey, I know this may look bad in light of the Abramoff scandal, and I want to ensure voters that this situation is different…, and then proceed to explain why its different.

The trouble is that the only difference is in scope. As far as we know, LaHood hasn’t been as big a crook as some of his colleagues.

C.J. doesn’t even mention my personal bugaboo about LaHood, that he has yet to explain why he went on a trip to France paid for the the Nuclear Energy Institute, an organization that lobbies on behalf of the General Electric and other companies that make money from nuclear power generation. One reason LaHood has yet to explain is that the Peoria media never, ever, ever calls him on it. It’s as if that part of their brain that calls for critical thinking has been removed from their bodies for the duration of their time in LaHood’s presence … or they simply have been instructed to not bring the subject up.

Given the track record of the Journal Star — they tend to protect certain people from criticism — that’s not something I can rule out.

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

One Response to “ LaHood continues to sidestep ‘earmark’ questions ”

  1. BrianG on June 5, 2006 at 2:23 pm

    C.J. has a wonderful post. I urge everyone to check it out. Thank you for bringing my attention to it. I also think that someone has probably put the muzzle on Molly Parker at the PJStar. It has been a long trip for her from the “Flip-floping on Ethics” at the first of the year to what Willy Nilly so pithily put it recently. Of course there was the “transcription” of Ray’s recent trip to the “Big Sandbox” in this morning’s paper. I hope you touch on some these themes on the Radio tomorrow.