Category Archives: Politics: The Party of Sleaze

Dana Milbank lets the facts do the snarking.

During National Character Counts Week, Bush Stumps for Philanderer: So it has come to this: Nineteen days before the midterm elections, President Bush flew here to champion the reelection of a congressman who last year settled a $5.5 million lawsuit alleging that he beat his mistress during a five-year affair

….

While representing the good people of the 10th District, the married congressman shacked up in Washington with a Peruvian immigrant more than three decades his junior. During one assignation in 2004, the woman, who says Sherwood was striking her and trying to strangle her, locked herself in a bathroom and called 911; Sherwood told police he was giving her a back rub.

At a time when Republicans are struggling to motivate religious conservatives to go to the polls next month, it is not clear what benefit the White House found in sending Bush to stump for Sherwood — smack dab in the middle of what Bush, in an official proclamation, dubbed “National Character Counts Week.”

This is.

Here’s the pro-George Allen take on the options issue.

Its main claims are (1) that the options were riding high before he was in the Senate, but near-zero by the time Allen took office; (2) that Allen’s assistance to the company that issued the options was pretty small stuff, quite routine; (3) Allen disclosed the options in his first filing, then relied on advice that there was no need to do so any more.

Compare these claims to the AP/Washington Post version of the facts:

Allen disclosed the options once _ on an amendment to his 2000 ethics report filed three months after the normal filing period ended. He excluded the options from subsequent reports.

When AP showed Allen’s lawyer the Senate ethics manual requirement that such options must be reported each year regardless of value, the lawyer said he was unfamiliar with that provision. Allen has now asked the Senate ethics committee for an opinion on whether he should have disclosed them.

So: Excuse #1 makes little sense: if the options are still alive, the holder has an interest in helping the company gain value to the point where they are in the money.

Excuse #2 is half right: What we know Allen did for the company on office time does in fact sound pretty routine. But the disclosure requirements don’t have an exception for just routine assistance. And in any case this wasn’t just some arms-length relationship, but a deep and complex financial relationship.

Excuse #3 is weird. If Allen had a blessing from the ethics committee staff why is he asking for an opinion now? And why would the staff give their blessing to what seems like a violation of the rules? And did Allen really think the company was dead beyond repair by 2001? It didn’t file for bankruptcy reorganization until July 2005. So see excuse #1…

George Allen’s defense to the revelation that he had failed to disclose stock options to the Senate as its rules require was that the options were worthless and thus not worth disclosing (never mind that the Senate rules require disclosure regardless of value, and that even options with negative value are a potential conflict since there might be incentive to move the stock to a position where the options become profitable).

Well, it turns out that Allen lobbied the Army for one of the firms at a time he held their options. And, those “worthless” options? They were worth $1.1 million at their peak. I guess that’s “worthless” only if you’re a Republican.

Bonus: Here’s the latest anti-Allen ad from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committe:

You’d think this ought to finish him off: Virginia Senator Did Not Disclose Stock Options.

But it will probably be a nail-biter anyway.