Dead Speaker Walking

No, not Nancy Pelosi, Michael Martin.  The Telegraph, which yesterday incorrectly claimed the Speaker of the House of Commons was going to resign, again makes that claim, based upon the thrashing the Speaker received last night in the House of Commons, where the, The Telegraph reports:

"I can confirm that the Speaker is making a statement this afternoon and that it is about himself," his spokeswoman said. It is unclear whether he will resign immediately or stay on until the next election.

Speaker Martin has become the highest-profile victim of the Westminster expenses scandal, which claimed another scalp today.

...

This morning a motion calling for his immediate resignation appeared on the Commons order paper signed by 23 MPs from across the political spectrum.

Douglas Carswell, the Tory MP who tabled the motion, said he hoped Mr Martin's successor would have the moral authority to push through reforms that would "restore dignity to politics".

The Speaker of the House of Commons is not like the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, in that he or she is a neutral party and the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition drive the operation.  The Speaker keeps everything civil. Ah, for the good old days, when Betty Boothroyd (now Baroness Boothroyd of Sandwell) was Speaker and you could hear her "Order, Order, Order in the House" as she reined in the more active members.

The current expense account scandal is not the only problem in Mr Martin's Speakership.  A while back he allowed the police to rifle through the papers of a Member of Parliament—the member had received back channel information from a civil servant showing government incompetence.

Would that our chaps on Beacon Hill would show some spunk and clean up their act.  This just shows the problems with reform when you live in a place where single party rule is the rule.

But, not to let Speaker Pelosi off the hook, while they may be able to fudge it down in DC, the fact is, she has said that the CIA lied to her and the Director of the CIA, Mr Leon Penatta, says they did not. To lie to Congress is to commit a crime.  Further, when you are a secret organization of the US Government you need to be accountable to some public official or officials who are accountable to the People. If the CIA lied, then Mr Panetta and those involved need to go.  If they did not, then ... It is as simple as that.

Well, maybe not.  Maybe it was her evil colleague, Porter Goss, who left the House of Representatives to run the CIA who caused all the problems.  That said, the briefings were in 2002 and George Tenet, appointed by President Bill Clinton, was in charge then.

At any rate, problems of integrity need to be solved on both Beacon Hill and Capitol Hill/Langley and soon and the best way to do that in a democracy is to have the parties who made mistakes take a "time out," and maybe just go away into retirement or work in another field.

UPDATE

I need to type faster. Even before I got this post published Wikipedia was announcing that Mr Martin would resign as of 21 June.  The BBC webpage has a spot on it, noting Mr Martin is the first Speaker to resign in 300 years.

Now, let's see a little of that action here in the US and especially here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Regards  —  Cliff