The Hindu Business Line : Bravo, US Congress!

THE great Canadian humorist, Stephen Leacock, inserted a profundity in one of his funny fibs: All boarding houses are the same boarding house. Meaning that you have seen one, and you have seen all. You might well say following the same train of thought: All politicians are the same politician.

In India, we all thought that only our politicians were full of wile and guile, and quick to resort to strategems and spoils, to extricate themselves from nasty situations by playing ducks and drakes with laws and rules.

It now appears that the ruling party (Republican) members of the US House of Representatives are no less adept in the practice of effrontery, although their efforts are puny compared to the Himalayan heights of brazenness our breed is capable of scaling.

Here is what happened: Representative Tom De Lay who happens to be the House Majority Leader had been admonished three times in the past year for trying to persuade a colleague to support a pending bill, appearing to link political donations to support for legislation and for involving a federal agency in a political matter in his home State of Texas. Hardly the stuff that will attract notice in the Indian context.

He is also the subject of investigation in Texas for bending the rules governing the collection and use of campaign finance — an allegation that would have produced only a big and irrepressible yawn from our lawmakers. However, since three others investigated on similar counts had already been charge-sheeted, it was feared that the indictment of Mr De Lay also was not far off.

According to the Congressional Rules of Ethics, enforceable by the Ethics Committee, elected representatives are not to engage in conduct that brings discredit on the House and party office-bearers are required to resign their position for unbecoming conduct or on being indicted under any of the provisions of the penal code.

True to the type of politicians everywhere, the House Republicans, outnumbering the Democrats, wanted to dilute the Rules to enable the office-bearer to continue holding his post in such circumstances. There was a public outcry, and the Republicans dropped the proposal. Whereas our political veterans would have thumbed their nose and gone ahead. This is where our politicians differ — for worse.

B. S. Raghavan

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