An old crook never goes away:
Former senator Conrad Burns of Montana is the latest example showing the loophole in the new ethics and lobbying reforms that were enacted last month.
A few days after the legislation became law, Burns strolled into the weekly Wednesday meeting of Senate conservatives in the Mansfield Room just a few steps off the chamber floor. Asked what he was doing there, Burns smiled and announced, "Lunch."
After losing his re-election bid last year, Burns signed up to work with Gage. That’s a lobbying firm on Capitol Hill founded by his former staffers, where Burns is not considered a lobbyist but is an adviser to a host of the firm’s clients, most of whom have a connection to the Big Sky state. The former senator must observe a one-year cooling-off period– the new law will extend it to two years starting in January — before he can represent clients before his old colleagues.
I know, I said I was done writing about Conrad, but he said he was only going to run for two terms. We all make mistakes.
From this month’s Washingtonian:
Jack expressed anger at politicians who now claimed they never knew him. He was particularly annoyed that Montana senator Conrad Burns had been quoted as saying he wished Jack “had never been born.”
“Was he wishing I was not born when we were together in Florida, or when we were dining at Signatures, or when he was using our sports boxes or getting tons of money?” he said later in an e-mail.
I’m done writing about Conrad Burns. This is my last post on the man. Okay, until the indictment comes down.
Conrad’s angry, it turns out, with the media, because they picked on him during the campaign. Leaving a group of reporters at the Capitol, Burns left a message for the press:
As he stepped on to the elevator to head to his office, he told a group of reporters to read the 109th Psalm in the Bible.
That passage opens, “Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise; For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.”
Classy move from a classy guy. The Montana press that has largely given him a free pass for 18 years is now “wicked” and “deceitful” because they had the audacity to print stories critical of him. Perhaps the embarrassing old crook forgot that the Montana media:
Here’s a newsflash for Conrad. You lost because you ran a campaign that suggested you were entitled to the job. You lost because you spokesman for much of the campaign was walking cliche, a pale shadow of Karl Rove without the intellect. You lost because you lost your way in Washington.
I’m done with you…and it sounds Montana might be, too:
He said he feels “pretty good” and said he will probably return to Montana to live.
Goodbye, Senator.
Montana Senator-Elect Jon Tester spoke at 11am this morning at the Townhouse Inn in Great Falls. I don’t know if it was carried live anywhere but the Montana News Station network has video posted of the speech and a brief interview here. In a continued move of class, the anchor at the station notes that Burns and his campaign staff has no comment.
Conrad Burns apparently fled the hotel where his campaign was headquartered last night. He answer to reporters about the race?
Burns declined to comment on the race as he left the Billings hotel where his supports were gathered, saying only that he was headed home to be near family.
Assuming that the media analysis is right and Tester is the winner of the Montana Senate race (and the numbers look iron-clad), I don’t expect Burns to gracefully leave.
