Field of Greed

There is good news if you are a corrupt Republican these days.

The good news is that you've got a crowd to hide among in the spotlight.

Today, Ohio Governor Bob Taft was charged with a crime for failing to report thousands of dollars in 'gifts.' If convicted he faces up to six months in jail for each count.

Not that he would be the first one to walk through the prison door though. GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff spent a night in a Los Angeles county jail last week after being indicted on fraud charges, and is being questioned in connection with a murder, which I wrote about on Friday. And Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, who was already under investigation for taking a $100,000 golf trip to Scotland at Abramoff's expense, now has to explain why he went so far as to put remarks into the congressional record not so long before the murder attacking the victim, a man who he had no dealings with and could only have gotten his information from Abramoff and his associate.

Another Republican congressman, outspoken conservative Duke Cunningham, has already announced he is quitting Congress in the face of mounting evidence of corruption.

What is more, they have helped to take the heat off of Karl Rove, who is under investigation for intentionally compromising our national security by giving out the name of a CIA operative during time of war. The media may have forgotten Rove for the moment, but you can be sure that the special prosecutor hasn't forgotten him.

Is the Majority Leader in the House still the ethically deficient Tom DeLay? By golly, it is. He sure is off the front page, crowded off of it. But the large majority of Republicans in the house got money, much of it tainted by scandal and corruption from Tom DeLay's PAC, and they can't 'wish it' away.

For a party that was jawing about how important it was for our leaders to 'set an example' by holding to a higher standard, the only 'higher standard' they have held to is that they have sold themselves for the really BIG money.

There may be a few honest ones among them, but even they are damaged by the fact that corruption and dishonesty has become a common trait of so many Republicans. It's time to dump out the whole plate of them in Congress and start over.