Washington - A former Congressman from US President George W Bush's Republican Party was sentenced Friday to 30 months in prison for accepting bribes in return for influencing legislation and providing other favours.
Despite Democratic claims to the contrary during the last election cycle, Congressional corruption is hardly a Republican only affair. Still, I have no problem with Ney being listed as a Republican. It's pretty typical to list current and former members of Congress by party affiliation. I have occasionally noticed that D's sometimes disappear from Democrats when they get in trouble, but that's another story.
I'm more interested in the totally gratuitous insertion of President Bush's name into this story. Why mention President Bush here? The only reason I can think of is to link him in the reader's mind to the corruption. I realize that this story was written for foreign readers so I suppose you might argue that they are reminding their readers who Republicans are, but that seems, at best, a pretense.
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