This originally appears at
Corked Bats.
Sonny Perdue, up for re-election in 2006, has just become the first Governor in Georgia's history to be convicted of an ethics violation. This violation adds to the ethics woes of Georgia's Republican Party, posterboy Ralph Reed.
Lots more corrupt goodness below the break..
AP's got the story:The State Ethics Commission Friday fined Governor Sonny Perdue for violating campaign laws. It is believed to be the first time a sitting governor has ever been fined since the commission was created in the 1970s
...
Mike Jablonski, a lawyer for Georgia Democrats, said the fine proves Perdue is "the most ethically challenged governor in Georgia history."
All of this is made more entertaining by the fact that Perdue ran on a platform of bringing ethics back to the Governor's mansion in Georgia. Check out these gems:
We're going to be the most ethical governing administration in America," Ayers said. "The governor has led by example." [Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 11, 2003]
and
"It's always tragic when a public official fails to uphold the ethical responsibilities that are entrusted in them by the people they serve," Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said in a prepared statement. [Augusta Chronicle, June 3, 2005]
Hypocrisy is a dish best served often by this administration, which has proved itself willing to doublecross the voters of Georgia on the
HOPE Scholarship, on
taxes, and now on ethics.
But the best part of all of this? The GOP's response:
Evans said the governor easily could have fought the charges. But, he said Perdue chose to accept the penalty to raise standards of conduct for the 2006 elections.
Yeah, that's a bit like OJ confessing to murder to raise standards of conduct among other potential murderers in California. Sound like a logical disconnect? Yeah, I thought so too.
And if Perdue is really doing this to raise standards of conduct, can we expect more unethical conduct from him in the future? Ya know, just to make sure we keep raising standards for elected officials in the future. But wait, there's more...
He called the commission's ruling a defeat for Democrats -- saying they had hoped Perdue would be cited for hundreds of
violations and pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
Only Republicans could call the first ethics conviction of a sitting Governor in Georgia's history a "defeat for Democrats". It seems Georgia Republicans and their leader, Gov. Perdue, are so hopeless, so overreaching, that they've abandoned all attempts at being ethical. Now, they're settling for "only ethical on a few counts."
Support the Democratic Party of Georgia. Perdue is enormously vulnerable, and Reed is in trouble as well. Picking up the Governorship in Georgia would be an enormous blow to Republicans nationwide, and we've got a huge opening to do it.