WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Free Congress Foundation's Notable News Now The Free Congress Commentary Traficant Takes a Stand - Now Must Fight Justice Department by Paul M. Weyrich Jim Traficant is perhaps the most colorful Member of Congress of our time. He dresses in outrageous outfits and jokes that he is the "fashion leader of the House." His hair always looks as if he just got out of bed. During his eight terms in Congress he has become famous for his one-minute speeches on the House floor, where he questions the wisdom and honesty of government policies. He nearly always ends up saying "beam me up," a reference to the old Star Trek television series. Traficant once said in a statement on the House floor that his colleagues were a "bunch of political prostitutes". The leadership immediately demanded an apology. So he apologized to all the hookers in the United States for having associated them with the Congress. Traficant is a Democrat. He is a Democrat from the depressed areas of Northern Ohio where the new economy has yet to be seen. A former sheriff, he speaks with a ring of authenticity which connects with his lower middle class blue-collar voters. Because he has become more and more conservative and more and more critical of the Clinton Administration, Democrats put up a state legislator and tried to defeat him in the primary earlier this year. It didn't work. The people support Jim Traficant. Now the Congressman has outraged the Democratic leadership in the House by affirming that he will vote to re-elect incumbent Republican Dennis Hastert as Speaker of the House in the 107th Congress. A Democrat openly supporting a Republican Speaker without changing parties is unprecedented. That makes the effort of the Democratic leadership to win back control of the House that much harder and they are now trying to figure out what to do about Traficant. Many Members want him stripped of his committee assignments and seniority and others want him ousted from the Democratic Caucus. Traficant says he is the best-known Congressman, not only in Northern Ohio, but also in the area across Pennsylvania which runs all the way from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, comprising some 15 million people. The Clinton Administration is afraid that Traficant will endorse George Bush for President and help him carry both Ohio and Pennsylvania. So Traficant charges that the Administration has resurrected twenty-year old charges that Traficant, in his campaign for sheriff in 1980, took money from a mob figure and agreed to help shut down the mobster's competition. Traficant vehemently denies the charges. Earlier he beat other charges by acting as his own attorney, even though he is not a lawyer. He says that because he has spoken out against the blatant corruption of the Clinton-Gore Administration, he will be indicted soon and a trial will be held before election day. This is being done, Traficant says, to discredit him with the voters he might influence for Bush. He vows to fight whatever charges are made against him with everything in his being. Few doubt that he will fight and, were I a betting man, I would not bet that a jury would convict Traficant. He comes across as just too honest to be convicted, and it is peculiar that the case against him goes back twenty years. Why now? In a city filled with hypocrites and phonies and plastic people, Jim Traficant is a breath of fresh air. I know nothing of the merits of the case against him. I do know the contribution he has made since getting elected to Congress. Among other things he is responsible for what teeth there were in the IRS reform bill that has had a dramatic effect on the power of the IRS to harass ordinary citizens. Now he is pushing a bill to set up a system of oversight of the Justice Department. He does not believe that Justice can properly investigate itself and he is correct. Whatever his past sins, if Bill Clinton can be forgiven for what he has done to America, then Jim Traficant ought to be given a pass for whatever it is he supposedly did. We need his honesty and forthrightness in the Congress. I hope he is there next January to cast that vote for Hastert. As things go, it may be the deciding vote as to who controls the Congress. The other side understands that too, and that is why Jim Traficant is suddenly in trouble with the Clinton Justice Department. Paul Weyrich is president of the Free Congress Foundation. 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