Doolittle Mucking About

Over at the Daily Muck, Paul Kiel breaks down Representative John Doolittle's (CA-4) recent newspaper interview.

Paul finds it noteworthy that so many of Doolittle's "friends" turned out to be crooks and poor John Doolittle can't figure out what happened. Afterall, according to Doolittle they were all his "friends" and all were "good Republicans."

John Doolittle, in fact, provides an excellent tutorial in the K Street Project, which was all about friendship. He is unabashed about his shilling for the Mississippi Choctaw, an Abramoff client, because the Chief was “a Republican” who “supports Republicans.” Unaware of any apparent tension with his touted ideals, here he lauds the Choctaw for being “very free-enterprise oriented.” Never mind that Doolittle, according to his spokesperson, has a "longheld anti-gaming position." All such high-minded principles go out the window when friendship is involved.

The same goes for Brent Wilkes, who would have been just another defense contractor if he had not showed such friendship to his representatives ($82,000 to Doolittle, which won him $37M in earmarked appropriations for a technology the military never asked for). As Doolittle charmingly puts it, “[Wilkes] was, you know, really quite the Republican in San Diego.”

Just like Duke Cunningham, John Doolittle will do anything for his Republican friends, particularly if some money changes hands. That's what friends are for, isn't it?