Ben Nelson and Bribery

Well Ben Nelson is on board with the health care bill according to the WaPo. However, there is a very interesting sentence in the article: "Nelson also secured other favors for his home state." This may be a very common occurence in the US Congress, but it is indeed bribery. Nelson had publicly stated his opposition to the bill. He met with the supporters of the bill and now supports it. And apparently, he also "secured otheer favors."

According to Black's Law Dicitonary 2nd. Edition, bribery is "the receving or offering any undue reward by or to any person whomsoever, whose ordinary profession or business relates to the administration of public justice, in order to influence his behavior in office." According to the US Code, bribery occurs when someone "directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent to influence any official act."

Well now... both of these definitions seem to fit the case at hand! Now I am not saying that bribery definitely occurred (although I do think it did) as that needs to be a legal determination. But there is definitely suspicious behavior. And bribery seems to me to be much worse than perjury. Maybe we need another Ken Starr here. But do you really think that this great hopeful "post-partisan" administration will look into its own actions? No, of course not. This is just Chicago politics. Back-room deals. Business as usual for the Obama Administration. And business as usual apparently means breaking the law ...