This was too good to pass up on a Thursday…

Back in 2006 when he was running for United States Senate, candidate Jon Tester promised that “…he’ll set an example — by asking a Montana judge to conduct an ethics audit of his office every year…”

It was right there on his campaign website in black and white. I can’t seem to find it now. But, luckily there are ways to find these things on the Web and then there are some folks who follow politics (like me) who keep copies of campaign promises on all the candidates, both Republican and Democrat.

Politicians are only as good as their word, right?

The “every year” ethics review has now become “latest ethics review for the current session of Congress” which means, for people who do not follow Congress very much; it is now being done every two years.

Are we heading down a slippery slope here, senator?

In my opinion, that’s not the troubling part of this dog and pony show that some in the Montana media have sucked on like a popsicle on a hot Montana day.

His initial ethics review was taken to task by some as one done by a party insider, when it was discovered a fellow Democrat was doing the ethics review. I don’t even want to get in to the fact that some believe the in-kind contributions of goods or services (like ethic reviews?) for official purposes are prohibited by Senate Rules.

The latest review, sadly, appears to be along the same lines. A retired judge completed the review. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but someone with the same name and hometown as the retired judge donated about $3350 to Tester for U.S. Senate not to mention several thousand dollars to other Democrats. This is according to campaign donor check of Newsmeat, which is a website dedicated to listing campaign donations. The same amount was found on OpenSecrets.org. I could only find one phone listening in Helena for this person, too.

Is this just a coincidence? Just maybe there are two people in Helena with the same name. Who knows, but my faithful readers can make that call. I doubt the Montana media will ask that question.

If this is the same person who donated several thousand dollars to see Tester succeed in his campaign, then he should not have been selected by the senator to do an ethics review of his office, period.

At least one would have thought that Tester’s declaration that “Montanans deserve honesty, openness and transparency” would have won out in this situation.

I guess not.