Great news! Former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas) has risen from the political grave to lecture the GOP on payola and ethics:

Great news! Former House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas) has risen from the political grave to lecture the GOP on payola and ethics: “This business of buying elections by getting our clients to pay for access is, I think, absolutely contrary to the fundamental precepts of democracy.”

Mr. Wright should know. It was only a few years after he resigned his post in 1989 under accusations of ethical violations, which included getting lobbyists to buy his memoir, that the GOP regained the majority.

At that time, the Democrat-controlled Congress was rocked with more scandals – including the embezzlement conviction of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski.

The Republicans, Mr. Wright said, played on those Democratic troubles but paired their criticisms with the “Contract With America” to regain the majority in 1994.

“I don’t think it was very substantial,” Mr. Wright said of the contract, “but it was effective.”

Influence-peddling in Washington is “very much worse” now than it has ever been, he said. And he added that Democrats should use the national attention on lobbyist Jack Abramoff – who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion and admitted lavishing gifts on lawmakers – as a springboard for campaign-finance reform that would give moderate-income candidates a chance to win congressional campaigns.

It would also take away the need for politicians to spend time on the “demeaning” business of raising money when they could be working for their constituents, he said.

“This business of buying elections by getting our clients to pay for access is, I think, absolutely contrary to the fundamental precepts of democracy,” said Mr. Wright, who was in Austin to give a presentation on his book about his experience in World War II, The Flying Circus: Pacific War, 1943, As Seen Through a Bombsight.

If it’s anything like his last book, it will 400 pages long, with ten words printed on every other page, sell for $4-skillion a copy and be purchased by special interests in groups of 500.

Someone. Pinch. Me.