For someone who has deemed earmark rules too confusing to bother with, shirking his responsibility to his district on a regular basis, and despite his own involvement in pork projects, Lee Terry certainly talks a lot about ethics reform. Even though he voted against some of those reforms in January.

With the news of indictments against Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), Terry tries to paint the Democrats in Congress with this scandal. But it’s the Republican leadership over the last twelve years that has been feeding this culture of corruption. I’d be lying if I said Jefferson wasn’t a sad symbol of the insiders protecting their own, and that he didn’t deserve to be thrown out of Congress, but Terry is in no position for righteous indignation.

Terry received campaign contributions from indicted former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ($10,000), as well as current House Republican leaders Roy Blunt ($13,000), and John Boehner ($20,000). Now, I had a lengthy discussion with Terry earlier this year about whether he believes money is harmful in politics (not surprisingly, he does not believe it’s a problem). This was one of the biggest distinctions between Terry and Jim Esch last year: Esch recognized that you can’t effect change if you are beholden to special interests as much as Lee Terry is.

Terry allies himself closely with the very people responsible for the lack of oversight and the total neglect of responsibility over the last decade in Congress, then has the nerve to claim he is a reformer. It’s actually quite sickening. Let’s make things right in 2008. Let’s get Lee Terry out.