Editorial: Mark Green and the scandals

This editorial steals some of my best stuff. Wish it were the Green Bay Press Gazette writing it.

The questions that Wisconsinites have to be asking themselves is this: Why, if George Bush, Dennis Hastert and so many other top Republicans are going out of their way to put distance between themselves and the various scandals that have gripped Washington, is U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Green Bay, not severing his ties to the subjects of so many investigations and inquiries?

Green refuses to give up roughly $30,000 in campaign contributions he got from groups associated with DeLay, he refuses to dismiss his campaign manager a former congressional aide who has been accused of accepting gifts from Abramoff and he refuses to distance himself from U.S. Rep. Bob Ney, the Ohio Republican who made a special trip to Wisconsin last fall to help Green and who now is one of the prime subjects of the Abramoff investigation.

Green, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor, needs to follow the lead of Bush, Hastert and other Republicans who have recognized that the scandals that are plaguing Washington are a big deal. If he fails to do so, no one in their right mind will want to trust him with the keys to this state's executive offices.