Scandal, Spin & Suffering.

I was hoping to stay away from the Foley mess, but this piece from Eugene Robinson pratically begs to be repeated:

"I don't know whether the Republicans will lose control of the House this fall, but I know that they deserve to. That judgment has nothing to do with party politics; there have been times when the Democrats were in control and allowed Congress to sink to a similar level of corruption. But that's surely where we are now, and since the Republicans are the ones in charge, they're the ones who deserve the blame.

We've had the Jack Abramoff scandal. We've had the Randy "Duke" Cunningham scandal. Congress -- especially the House -- has made immigrants into scapegoats. House Republicans didn't even clear their throats in objection when the White House demanded, and eventually won, the right to decide what is and isn't torture. For years now the House has legislated primarily to shovel pork, pork and more pork to the folks back home.

And now, however it happened -- either because of a deliberate political decision or because the institution is so degraded that it couldn't stir itself to action, like an overstuffed aristocrat crippled by gout -- we learn that the House has countenanced a congressman's sick advances toward teenagers."

This is connected to hasbeen's comments about the Republican marriage of the pro-Business Crowd and the Values Crowd: all these years of unchecked power have corrupted the people sent to represent us. They took money from the PBC, paid lip services to the VC, and bent over backwards to appease the President. None of this would be a big deal if Republicans weren't competely in charge in determining the legislative/executive agenda for this country.

But they are, and without oversight it's going to be more scandal, spin and suffering.