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Issue: “Revolving door” of D.C. money still paying off for Nethercutt/Alicia Mundy, Seattle Times
More Info: Since about 2001, the Spokane Republican had helped steer millions in federal contracts to the company, some through earmarks — projects slipped anonymously into the federal budget by individual lawmakers. Isothermal, meanwhile, donated thousands of dollars to Nethercutt’s campaigns. The company and its lobbyists were the second-largest contributors to Nethercutt’s Senate race, behind Microsoft. Nethercutt’s relationship with Isothermal is a classic case of what is known in D.C. as the “self-licking ice-cream cone”: A lawmaker helps a company win a contract, that company helps the lawmaker stay in office, and on and on it goes.
Lewiston Tribune: Nethercutt … entered the political scene as a reformer. He was going to go to Washington, help clean things up, and after six years return to Spokane. Today, 12 years later, he has become the target at which he took aim in a time that now appears more innocent, and more naive. (Editorial: System he rapped embraces, rewards Nethercutt)
Question: Are they all hypocrites?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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