Nancy Pelosi, during the honeymoon after being elected the first woman Speaker ever, promised she was going to put the members of Congress to work after their indolent year under the Republicans. Then she set a schedule for House sessions this year. That gave members twenty weeks off (Dick Morris Reports, 6-20-07). No corporation can match that.

Next Ms. Pelosi struck a blow for family values. She asked the Department of Defense to fly members’ children free on junkets. And speaking of junkets, her fellow Californian, Rep. George Miller, must have set a record. Since 2000 he’s been to “Mexico, Lebanon, Cambodia (twice), Israel (twice), Vietnam (twice), Jordan, South Africa, Iraq, France, Italy (twice), Hong Kong, Sudan (twice), Taiwan, Ghana, Laos, Liberia, Egypt and Cape Verde.” And that’s just the trips taxpayers paid for.

He’s also been to twenty countries – a total of 161 days traveling – courtesy of the Aspen Institute. That’s roughly twenty vacations, averaging seven days per country, he got free.

Finally, Ms. Pelosi promised to clean up “ethics.” When Dennis Hastert was House Speaker his son, Joshua, left his job in a record store, moved to Washington and became a lobbyist. Google hired him. Democrats were horrified.

Senate leader Harry Reid has three sons – and a son-in-law. All lobbyists. And – just to be bipartisan – Republican House Whip Roy Blunt’s wife works as “director of federal government affairs” for Altria/Philip Morris tobacco and Senator Orrin Hatch’s son, Scott, “lobbied for the makers of ephedra” (a diet supplement) while his father sponsored legislation to exempt the supplement from federal regulation. (Young Mr. Hatch was paid $2 million in lobbying fees.)

No wonder we can’t win the war in Iraq, or, on the opposite end of the equation, find a way out of the war. Congress is too busy grabbing the loot to pay attention.

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