NOW, GO TO YOUR ROOM AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU DID! Jim Traficant went to jail for accepting bribes. Yet when Senator
Robert Torricelli of New Jersey is caught doing the same thing, he's punished with . . . a good talking-to. To be precise, the Senate ethics committee "severely admonished" Torricelli for accepting gifts from businessman David Chang at a time Torricelli was helping Chang. After repeated denials that he ever accepted big-ticket cool stuff from Chang, Torricelli confessed to the ethics committee this week that he did accept the aforementioned cool stuff. As a result of an investigation initiated by the Clinton Justice Department (seriously!!!), David Chang is in prison for making illegal contributions to Torricelli's 1996 campaign. (If only Chang had paid the Clintons for a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, he'd be a free man today.)
The ethics committee's written reprimand is about as severe as Ward Cleaver sternly lecturing Beaver for not washing his hands before dinner. Although Torricelli's fellow senators call it accepting "gifts," their determination of what Torricelli did sounds a lot like something else: "Continuation of a personal and official relationship with Mr. Chang under circumstances where you knew that he was attempting to ingratiate himself . . . over a period of years when you were taking official actions of benefit to Mr. Chang evidenced poor judgment." In the World's Most Exclusive Club, taking bribes magically becomes "evidencing poor judgment."
Isn't it a tad disconcerting that lawmakers refuse to use precise language? So let's be precise. Kids accept gifts from Santa Claus; Robert Torricelli accepted bribes from David Chang . . . and he got away with it.
