Profile in Corruption

I do so love me some for real, investigative journalism. As part of an ongoing series, NYT takes on Darrell Issa:

Even as he has built a reputation as a forceful Congressional advocate for business, Mr. Issa has bought up office buildings, split a holding company into separate multimillion-dollar businesses, started an insurance company, traded hundreds of millions of dollars in securities, invested in overseas funds, retained an interest in his auto-alarm company and built up a family foundation.

As his private wealth and public power have grown, so too has the overlap between his private and business lives, with at least some of the congressman’s government actions helping to make a rich man even richer and raising the potential for conflicts.

Of course, they pull their punches a bit. Potential for conflicts? Looks like glaringly obvious conflicts to me.

Most politicians at least go through the motions of selling off some interests or setting up blind trusts. Hell, even Cheney did that. And I'm sure you'll recall that it was Issa who wrote a love letter to 150 businesses and trade groups asking them to tell him which regulations they would like him to get rid of. But still, good to see NYT enter this stuff into the narrative, even if the TV media is likely to ignore it in favor of some trivial bullshit about Obama's little bus tour or the latest hijinks of the hopeful GOPers.