Of Geese, Ganders, and Tasty Gravy (and Gored Oxen, for that matter...)  While, as seems typical of Democrats, the amount of ethically-questionable money is rather less than it generally is in cases involving Repugnicans, $1.1 million ain't precisely chump change, enither:

AP Exclusive: Reid got $1M in land sale

WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

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I've been accused, by friends and on-line correspondents who really don't pay enough attention, of coming down hard on Republicans who screw up and ignoring the moral lapses of Dems.

Well, if the moral failing in question is pretty well irrelevant to his job qualifications and doesn't really call into question his fitness to continue therein, yeah, i'll cop to that. It's called "business as usual" in politics - you use any club your opponent hands you to beat him heavily about the head and shoulders, and you expect him to do the same to you. (And complaining about how "unfair" it all is is a meta-tactical expansion of the same thing.)

But when a powerful official (say a Senator - maybe even a Minority Leader...) apparently uses the power of his office to manipulate deals he officially has no connection with, and then fails to report the profits made as he is required to do by Senate ethics rules - yeah, smoke his ass.

Full-court-press investigation, censure or whatever is the maximum discipline he could face, if the charges are found to have erit.

But, ya know, i have to admit that, personally, i'd say that a little creative dealing and some convenient amnesia about $1.1 million in possibly-questionable gains* when filling out an ethics report seem to me a bit picayune when compared to

ONE: the exploits of a Congresscritter who, simultaneously, and at the same time (thank you, Great Gonzo) was chairing a caucus on missing and exploited children and authoring/sponsoring legislation to protect kids on the Internet, was sending pretty predatory-sounding e-mails to sixteen year old pages (apparently pages were warning each other not to get caught alone with Foley as far back as 1995, at least)

TWO: A Speaker whose office was apparently informed several years ago of said members little recreational peccadillos who swears that either that never happened or that he, personally didn't hear about it if anyone did happen to mention it and then

THREE: Tries very hard to make the whole hoohah the fault of the "liberal media" who reported it (with help from FOX Izvestia, which several times "accidentally" labelled Foley as a Democrat, and, when caught out, removed the incorrect caption, but failed to acknowledge their minor "error"), well..

Yeah, as i said, investigate Reid, and, if he did done it, hit 'im with the max penalties prescribed (probably censure and losing his position as Minority Leader) and then leave it to the voters to decide if he stays in the Senate.

And investigate Foley and Hastert - in open session, so no-one can accuse anyone of coverups. Consider whether any criminal charges should be filed. Forget all of this "This is all a Plot on the part of the Liberal Media Conspiracy to cause trouble for the GOP stuff."

Make it clear to one and all exactly who did what (or would have liked to) and to whom, when, and who knew about it and when. And, if there was a cover-up (as seems likely to me), whodunnit?

And let's have an Elephant Roast next month...

*I sort of wonder, how many minutes (or is "minutes" optimistic on my part?) does it take $1.1 million to go down the bottomless sinkhole - i'm sorry, i mean Halliburton Corporation - in Iraq, versus how long did Reid have to work to steal it (or whatever he did), BTW?

  ¶ 12:38 AM