Senator Pat “Memory Pills” Roberts seems to have forgotten that ethics matter for a United States Senator. After his close friend, Sen. Ted “Effing Moron” Stevens was convicted of seven different corrupt acts, everyone from John McCain to the Senate Minority Leader have called on Stevens to resign his seat.
Pat Roberts chose to buck his party, common sense, and basic ethics in standing by Stevens, saying he should not resign. His party’s leader, Mitch McConnell, says that, if Stevens doesn’t resign, “there is a 100 percent certainty that he would be expelled from the Senate.” But Roberts sits on the ethics panel where such a move would begin. Will all the junkets that Roberts took on Stevens’ dime pay off here? Could Roberts let his corrupt colleague stay in the Senate?

Jim Slattery, a former Representative who is running to replace Pat Roberts’ failed Senatorship says that “Stevens should resign immediately from public office and if he refuses, Sen. Roberts and members of the U.S. Senate must stand up to their friend and colleague and insist that he resign.” Slattery added that “Sen. Roberts has an obligation to the voters of Kansas to hold Sen. Stevens accountable for his actions.”

Roberts has a history of conveniently forgetting such obligations. A report on abuse of intelligence in the runup to the Iraq war languished under Roberts’ leadership, as did inquiries into illegal warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. It’s time for a change.