Caucus of Corruption: An exclusive interview with Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan
LEO: With such a "target rich environment" provided by the topic of your book, Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority, how did you choose where to begin? Did you use the alphabet method?
MATT: The first step was determining how the book would be organized. There was plenty of information out there, but a lot of it is very complicated... lots of individual links in a really large chain. We organized the book essentially into two parts, "Who?" and "What?"... The first chapters each focus on one member of the Democratic Leadership (Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Charles Schumer and Rahm Emanuel) and the rest of the chapters take a look at a particular offense (connections to Jack Abramoff, sex scandals, bribery, etc.) and explain who in the Democratic Party are guilty of it.
LEO: To borrow a term from the liberal lexicon, the two of you come from geographically-diverse locations. What were some of the logistical difficulties encountered in your collaboration efforts?
MARK: Well, we're pretty much on different sides of the country, Matt lives in Massachusetts, and I live in Nevada. So, not only was there an issue with geography, but also a 3-hour time difference. Much of the research was done individually, and we shared it via email and such, but, Matt also came out to Las Vegas twice last year (a week in March, and a week in November), and spent that time working together, adding more material, writing and rewriting...
MATT: And going to the casinos.
LEO: What kind of legwork did you have to do in order to acquire your material? Was it largely available on the internet?
MATT: We're by no means super-sleuths, but it did take some digging to find a lot of the information. We discovered some skeletons in the closets of several Democrats, particularly Senator Charles Schumer, that we weren't aware of until we were doing the research for Caucus of Corruption, so we're sure it will be news to most people.
MARK: We did notice that quite a bit of the information came from wire stories that did not get picked up by the MSM. Where we would see a story of Republican corruption carried on prime news outlets, stories of Democratic corruption were placed in the "State and Local wire", which doesn't carry nearly the impact in the news cycle. It certainly helped us see how biased the media is when it comes to reporting on corruption.
LEO: Did you have any DNC "inside sources" (names would be cool-heh)?
MATT: Unfortunately Democrats are more concerned with party loyalty and their own power... they have no desire to hold their own accountable. So, no... no DNC inside sources were used or harmed in the writing of Caucus of Corruption.
MARK: That plus the fact that we didn't need the sort of inside and anonymous sources Democrats use in their efforts to defame — as we were seeking merely to tell the truth and bring balance to the debate, the public record was sufficient, and quite devastating.
LEO: As readers of Psycmeistr's Ice Palace, Blogs for Bush, and Murtha Must Go! know, I'm no fan of Jack Murtha, and tales of his corruption are legion. What do you think are the main factors behind his many re-elections in PA-12, despite his sleazy past (and present)?
MARK: Republicans don't live in the muck of the politics of personal destruction as Democrats do. Over the years the Democrats have had a great deal of success in convincing everyone that their muckraking is common to both sides, but the fact of the matter is that Republicans like to fight it out on ideas — and thus Murtha's long trail of corruption hasn't been used to full effect. Democrats go for the dirt right from the start, Republicans tend to go for it only in response to attacks. Another interesting discovery we made in researching the book is that no matter what the crime committed by a Democrat, their supporters very easily choose to ignore those transgressions for the sake of reelecting the Democrat. Former Congressman Mel Reynolds (D-IL) was indicted on statutory rape and child pornography charges in August 1994... was reelected overwhelmingly that November. He was later convicted on those (and other) charges, but was pardoned by Bill Clinton just before he left office.
MATT: Then of course, there's Gerry Studds, the Democrat from my home state of Massachusetts, who was revealed to have had a sexual affair with an underage male page in 1983, but was reelected six times afterwards by the voters of his district until he retired. The bottom line is Democrats couldn't care less about sleaze and corruption in their party. They'd rather ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist, or accuse Republicans of being worse.
MARK: The bar is, indeed, set higher for Republicans. Which is a good thing for the party. The real question is why don't Democrats -- who have campaigned against corruption -- hold themselves to a standard.
LEO: It would appear that many Democrats are "teflon" offenders; that is, the consequences of their deeds, no matter how serious, appear to slide off of them like teflon, while relatively minor offenses by conservative Republicans are dragged through the media ad nauseum. In your research for the book, have you gained any insight (other than liberal media bias) as to the reasons for the double standards? Is it that Democrats are necessarily held to lower expectations?
MATT: The reason is this: Republicans have a popular agenda, and Democrats don't; if Democrats were to tell the American people the truth about what they want to do — things like gay marriage, federally funded abortion on demand, more surrenders of our sovereignty to the UN — then they'd lose 100 seats at the next election. Lacking an agenda they can run on, Democrats will only run against the GOP. Republicans care about issues and not only fight for a conservative agenda but are proud to declare themselves "conservative." When was the last time you saw a Democrat even admit to his liberalism?
MARK: Heck, even admit to being a Democrat? Reid ran for re-election in 2004 as "an independent for Nevada"...
MATT:...and that is because Democrats and their supporters only care about power... Democrat voters have shown that they will continue to vote for corrupt Democrats regardless of whether they've committed rape, accepted bribes, killed someone, funneled money to their family, whatever... they will reelect them over and over. There is no desire for accountability within the Democratic Party.
So, I wouldn't even say that Democrats hold themselves to lower standards... I don't think they have any standards at all.
MARK: Of course, Democrats would probably say the same thing about Republicans, but let's look at the facts. Bob Ney is no longer in Congress. Randy "Duke" Cunningham is no longer in Congress. Reps. Doolittle and Renzi are under investigation, but haven't been indicted yet, but they still stepped down from their committees anyway.
Now let's look at some Democrats. We already mentioned Gerry Studds and Mel Reynolds. But there are several Democrats mentioned in Caucus of Corruption that are still serving. William Jefferson, who was reelected last year even though he was under investigation for bribery. Senator Bob Menendez was elected to a full term in the Senate even with several scandals he was involved in and a federal probe launched into his financial dealings. Rep. Alan Mollohan was overwhelmingly reelected in spite of an ongoing federal investigation. Democrats have repeatedly and consistently shown that even the most egregious crimes, if they are committed by Democrats, they get a free pass.
LEO: In doing your research, have the McCain-Feingold "Campaign Finance Reform" laws been effective in their original intent? What sort of loopholes inherent in the bill have been utilized to skirt its restrictions? What parts of the bill have been completely ignored?
MATT: The ironic thing about campaign finance reform is that Democrats are the biggest proponents of campaign finance reform and also some of the worst violators of campaign finance laws. And some, like Nancy Pelosi, might not be in power today if they hadn't broken laws to get ahead.
MARK: It's not even just a question of loopholes in most cases, we found several examples of flagrant violations of campaign finance laws. But the loopholes are also quite interesting — want to know how to bribe a politician? Its really quite simple: you donate to his campaign, and he pays his wife/brother/kid/lover/etc for being some sort of a campaign consultant — the money still winds up in the politicians pocket, and all perfectly legal. Neat job, if you can get it — and be dishonorable enough to be able to sleep at night after you do it. It also shows that the Democrats alleged desire to "get money out of politics" is really a desire to get conservative money out of politics — the laws severely hamper grassroots organizations from raising money and being heard, but they really do nothing to prevent Democrats ensconced in power from doing whatever they please.
LEO: Of all the scandals that you covered, which do you think was the most damaging to the welfare of the United States and its national security, and why?
MATT: Certainly, if you look at the way Democrats treat the military, particularly in the context of the war in Iraq, there is little doubt that Democrats been emboldening our enemies, which is a major threat to our national security.
MARK: This goes back several years. Back to Vietnam, in fact. You have the future Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry accusing American soldiers of war crimes, and participating in a meeting of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War during which a plan to assassinate pro-war senators was discussed. The of course there's Ted Kennedy corresponding with the KGB in the 1980s with the intent of undermining Ronald Reagan's foreign policy and reelection. It seems like Democrats are willing to go to any length, even actions that could be considered treasonous, in order to undermine Republicans in power for the sake of their own ambitions.
LEO: While I understand that keeping up with the continuing flow of corruption coming from D.C. and elsewhere can be a bit like herding cats, are there nonetheless plans to update your book? If so, do you see an update in time for the 2008 elections?
MATT: We're definitely keeping tabs on ongoing revelations of corruption in the Democratic Party. Since the book has come out, there's been more information revealed about Dianne Feinstein's conflicts of interest for chairing the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Barack Obama's ties to Tony Rezko, and even a Nancy Pelosi earmark that will likely financially benefit her family. We hope that our book will help make people (especially partisan Democrats) aware that corruption occurs on both sides of the aisle and there's no use in pretending that one side is guilty and the other is not. Caucus of Corruption would not have been necessary if Democrats were being held to account to the extent Republicans have been.
MARK: Now, that doesn't mean we don't think Republicans should be held accountable for corruption. On the contrary, we believe the Republican Party ultimately benefits when its corrupt members are let go. The problem is that they're the only ones being held accountable, while the other side aisle gets away with anything and everything. Government will never be rid of corruption if one party (the Republican Party) is taking all the heat, and the other party (the Democrats) are allowed to continue being corrupt while gaining more and more power.
LEO: In terms of writing, I harken back to P.J. O'Rourke, who once stated, "I hate writing, but love having written." What were your biggest challenges in writing the book?
MATT: Finishing it. It was hard to know when and where to stop, there was so much to put in there.
MARK: That was a problem; but I also found it a challenge to not get too angry — to not allow bile to build up and flow into the work. We're watching our country being sacrificed to the personal ambitions of petty-minded politicians, and getting down into that muck was hard at times.
LEO: What were your greatest rewards?
MATT: Holding the final print version of the book for the first time was really exciting. Also, going to the book store and seeing it on the shelf was a great moment for me.
MARK: It is a humbling thing to think that what you've written is actually being purchased by people — and purchased by people who have many other things they can spend their money on. My reward for this is the thought that at some level I am helping to move people towards doing the right thing — Republican or Democrat, it doesn't really matter, in the end: we want corruption stamped out, and my hope is that this book plays at least a small part in helping that happen.
LEO: What are your future plans in promoting the book?
MARK: We're just going to do everything we can to make sure as many people know about the book as possible. We particularly hope that bloggers will play a big part in getting the word out!
LEO: Thanks, Matt & Mark-- Best of luck to you!
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