Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Editorial: Giving Virgil Goode benefit of the doubt
A guilty plea by MZM's founder doesn't make the congressman look good, but it doesn't implicate him in anything illegal, either.
From the RoundTable blog
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U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode faces a challenge to his squeaky-clean image in the guilty plea by defense contractor Mitchell Wade, owner of MZM Inc.
In addition to showering disgraced Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., with bribes, Wade admitted to making illegal campaign donations to two other members of Congress, unnamed in his plea, but identifiable as Goode and Florida Republican Katherine Harris.
Goode received more than $90,000 in contributions from Wade and employees of MZM. Not long after that cash started coming in, Goode helped MZM win a lucrative defense contract -- and a highly unusual incentives deal -- that brought 150 new jobs to Martinsville.
This may well look worse than it actually is. Wade told federal prosecutors that the members of Congress didn't know the campaign contributions were illegal.
The MZM facility Goode helped shepherd to his district is the type of new-economy employer the region desperately needs. It's easy to understand the appeal Goode no doubt saw in the chance to create jobs for his hard-pressed constituents.
After Cunningham pleaded guilty, and exposed the lengths Wade and MZM would go to in order to win business, Goode donated all of the contributions from MZM to charity.
Still, giving Goode the benefit of the doubt, the most charitable conclusion that can be drawn from all of this is that, while not acting with corrupt intent, Goode allowed himself to be used by Wade and MZM, while remaining cluelessly incurious about his top donor.
As a former top aide of Goode's said, it is "suspicious" that Goode didn't find the influx of donations worth further investigation. "It seems to me a situation in which he either knew, or should have known," Goode's former chief of staff Jim Severt told The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The issue is far bigger than Goode, however. As a former employee of Wade told Roanoke Times reporter Laurence Hammack, Wade believed that in Washington, D.C., "you could buy anything or anyone."
Considering the saturation of political cash and the cancerous pervasiveness of corruption that continues to be exposed, Wade's attitude seems sadly well-founded.
Goode may have done nothing illegal in his dealings with MZM.
But his serious misjudgments demonstrate how difficult it has become to distinguish between congressional actions undertaken to benefit constituents and actions undertaken to curry favor -- and cash -- from well-heeled benefactors.
