Could you guess corruption would be so big in people's mind

[the_outsider]

as the exit polls suggested. I had a sense that repugs were in deep trouble with Iraq, but the strong feeling against corruption and bad governance kind of took me by surprise. I had not realized that it had registered so much and sunk in so deep with American people, particularly if you consider the biased MSM coverage - still the main source of information for most people.

[Kagemusha]

1. I think it's code for gay sex.

That's just me though

[the_outsider]

2. Yes, part of it definitely. But I don't think it was just that.

[Matariki]

10. no - not gay sex - just hypocrisy about it.

[TomClash]

3. Iraq is corruption

Far worse than Jack Abramoff. Frankly, he's small potatoes.

[blm]

6. Corruption is connected to ALL of BushInc's policies, including Iraq.

.

[kenny blankenship]

11. Exactly, there are several species of corruption involved in the Iraq issue alone

there's the whitehouse underhanded fucking with civil service agencies' established methods and procedures for coming up with foreign intelligence. There's the deceitful Iraq War Resolution, whose terms have not been followed, and the lying to Congress. There's the war-profiteering angle, in which VP Cheney's company makes billions in Iraq War contracts. There's the deliberate destruction of international institutions and norms of international law which we helped to create, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives. There's the hijacking of American foreign policy to serve the interests of oil companies and foreign governments. These are all forms of corruption, in which proper and legal goals and procedures of our government have been crushed by a small group of piratical dictators.

[napi21]

4. I was much more amazed that the talking heads from CNN said they

were shocked by the exit polls saying their #1 reason that affected their vote was corruption. Even most of the pubs are very mu7ch against the kind of crap that has been uncovered in this Congress, and it's not over yet! For people whose job it is to assess what the people are thinking to be shocked that the Pameican people were terribly bothered by the corruption is unbelievable to me.

[kenny blankenship]

5. I think "corruption" is kind of a catch-all term that needs examination

It's possible that the people responding with "corruption" as the number one concern they had in the midterms meant different things by it: individual votes for cash like Duke Cunningham, or systemic corruption of the political process by Abramoff style bartering of Congressional votes for campaign contributions, or Exec Branch erosion of the Constitutional framework of our gov't, or Congressional leadership turning a blind eye to sexual harrassment by big fundraisers (the Foley thing), or war-profiteering, or pre-war intelligence massaging, or ALL of those things. They are all corruption in one way or another.

I would hate to see us adopt a narrow idea of what "corruption" means because the corporate media would prefer to limit the outrage to the simple cases of Congressmen on the take. Most of the corruption in our gov't and institutions (like the media itself for example) is more complex, and goes much deeper than that.

[the_outsider]

8. Right. We need to break it down.

I was just pleasantly surprised to find so many voters to be on top of this.

[Rick Myers]

7. The c-word means Hallibuton, KBR, etc. to most folks!!!

[Old and In the Way]

9. Considering the focus it didn't get in the MSM, yes, I'm surprised.

We certainly knew because it was covered in detail on the internets...but not really deep in the MSM. They were covering missing white girls or pets gone wild or anything that impacted directly on .000001% of the population. It is encouraging to know that people do get what the Republican Crime Syndicate was up to these past 6 years.....it bodes well for our future of cleaning up Congress.