Lobby to a Better America

Headline: Lobbying Reform Stalls in Senate

According to an article on Fox news' website, the Senate was inches away from passing a new, tough lobbying and ethics bill. Then came the Dubai port "scandal" (don't even get me started on the hypocrisy of this one) and the bill was tabled so they could deal with this port issue. Does anybody else think the Dubai port deal came out of nowhere? Of course, we are led to believe that this was some super-secret attempt of the Bush administration to sneak this deal through. Sorry, but turning over operations of government owned ports without anyone being the wiser seems a little difficult to do; especially without attracting a little attention. Here's my take. Everybody knew about the deal. Nobody really cared about the deal. Then came the real possibility of having free luxury vacations, cash "donations", expensive meals and "earmarks" taken away and all of a sudden we have an issue so urgent that we need to table the lobby reform bill. Oops, did someone accidentally leak the UAE info to the press? Yeah, that sounds about right. The House isn't doing much better moving this thing along either. I find it odd that a bill with such wide bi-partisan support cannot seem to get pushed through both Houses with ease. All the Senators and Representatives interviewed are pledging not to let this bill die. I guess I don't see how a bill with such wide support can slip to the back of the line. Furthermore, it's crazy that we even need a bill saying that our elected "representatives" cannot accept gifts to persuade them to vote a certain way. Republican or Democrat (Harry Reid would have you think otherwise), they all do it. This thing stinks to high heaven. Not to mention, this bill takes only one step towards a problem that requires much tougher legislation.