My, my the MSM love affair with Senator Frist has ended:
"WASHINGTON - Blind trusts are designed to keep an arm’s-length distance between federal officials and their investments, to avoid conflicts of interest. But documents show that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist knew quite a bit about his accounts from nearly two dozen letters from the trust administrators.
Frist, R-Tenn., received regular updates of transfers of assets to his blind trusts and sales of assets. He also was able to initiate a stock sale of a hospital chain founded by his family with perfect timing. Shortly after the sale this summer, the stock price dived.
A possible presidential contender in 2008, Frist now faces dual investigations by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission into his stock sales."
Wow! That AP is on it eh! Got Frist in the cross hairs, and by the short hairs too!
Too bad it's not "fair and balanced"
Isn't it amazing how Frist get's the Front Page treatment, but Democrats get hardly noticed? Witness Nancy Pelosi. Hardly old news, this Article from July 07, 2005
Ethics -- Only good for the other side
"a funny thing happened on Pelosi's way to her ethics coup: She ran afoul of the same rules she hurls at DeLay.
As the Washington Post reported, last week Pelosi filed delinquent reports for three trips she herself accepted from outside sponsors. The biggie was a week-long 1999 trip to Taiwan, paid for by the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce. The tab for Pelosi and her husband: about $8,000.
Just last month, Pelosi spokeswoman Jennifer Crider told Roll Call that Pelosi's "position is that the rules are clear; people need to follow them." Within days, Pelosi had to refile because she failed to follow these "clear" rules.
Here's another glitch: A senior aide to Pelosi, Eddie Charmaine Manansala, went on a $9,887 trip in 2004 sponsored by the same Korea-U.S. Exchange Council as sponsored DeLay's excursion -- then failed to file the mandated paperwork until a reporter asked about the trip.
And while Pelosi bashes GOP ethics, PoliticalMoneyLine, a data firm, crunched the numbers and found that in the last five years, Democrats took 3, 458 privately funded junkets, while Republicans took 2,666.
Hmmm, How much did we hear of this?
The Washington Times in an April 5th, 2005 story carries even more ethical issues for Ms. Pelosi.
Again, how much did we hear of this?
Jack Kelly writing in the Post Gazette on May 8th, 2005:
"People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Democrats in Congress are beginning to find out.
Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., has reimbursed the Spectrum Group, a defense lobbying firm, $571 for food and lodging in Fort Lauderdale in February, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported Tuesday. It is against House rules for a lawmaker or staffer to accept gratuities from lobbyists, though non-profit groups may pay for their travel expenses.
The Associated Press reported the same day that expenses for a trip Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., took to the Northern Mariana islands in 1996 were paid by Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist currently under criminal investigation.
The Washington Times reported April 20 a lobbying firm paid the $3,336 tab for a trip Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, and her husband took to Puerto Rico in 2001."
Now this kind of stuff takes place on both sides of the isle. It's a Washington problem. If Frist violated rules or laws (even if they are stupid laws as I believe the blind trust law is), then he should face the consequences. I have no problem with that. But it's amazing how fast one can fall from grace - especially from the hypocritical left.
But I guess its: You do the crime, you do the time!
- right Robert Blake? (Oh, yeah, never mind!)
UPDATE: As expected the built up frustration (which rose over the top with the stem-cell issue) is coming to bear on the Right. Read here for a taste of what is to come!
Filed Under: Bill Frist Senator Frist
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