We’ll always have Freedom Fries


Once Bob Ney was the Mayor of Capitol Hill, wielding his influence as chairman of the House Administration committee to assign parking spaces and order French fries to be renamed “freedom fries” in the House cafeteria. Now, he’ll be trading cigarettes for extra cans of Pringles in prison. It’s an American tragedy, don’t you think?

I don’t mean to be melodramatic, it’s just that I’m reeling from the stunning news of Ney’s guilty plea to fraud and conspiracy in the Abramoff scandal. Next thing you know, we’ll find out he wears a toupee. He’s admitting to taking about 170 thousand dollars worth of goodies from Abramoff and his associates. Who could have seen that coming? After all, for more than a year he denied any wrongdoing. “I was duped,” he said, and we believed him, didn’t we? Even when we read emails like this one:

“Just met with Ney! We’re f’ing gold! He’s going to do Tigua…”
---Jack Abramoff, March 2002

Now Ney says he has a drinking problem and has checked himself in for rehab. He didn’t take the Mel Gibson defense until he learned that unlike Mel, they can take away his freedom. And they will. The prosecutors are asking for 27 months.

Actually, my favorite corruption charge doesn’t involve Abramoff at all. It involves Elvis. Well, at least indirectly. In 2003, Ney was flown to London by a guy named Nigel Winfield, who wanted to sell American-made airplane parts to Iran. In exchange for the trip, Ney lobbied the State department to get the sanctions against Iran lifted. Winfield was a convicted felon who had once tried to screw Elvis Presley on an airplane deal. Ney, of course, says he didn’t know Winfield was a criminal.

Which does lead to the question, could anybody call up Bob Ney, invite him on an all expenses paid trip to Europe, and ask him to lobby the Secretary of State…without Ney’s staff doing so much as a five minute background check on Google before handing their boss his passport and airplane tickets?

As Ney was heading for rehab, his House Republican buddies were passing a tiny, toothless “reform” bill that does nothing to clean up the corrupting influence of lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. It requires House members to identify themselves as they stuff earmarks into legislation; they can still rip off taxpayers, as long as they tell us they’re ripping us off.

“We’re blowing away the fog of anonymity,” Rep. David Dreier announced.

Something definitely blows, that’s for sure.

As for good old Bob Ney, We’re going to miss you, Mr. Disgraced ex-Congressman, but we’ll always have freedom fries.


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