One Down, Sixty to Go

In a rare show of ethics, Tom Delay did the right thing today and stepped down as House Majority Leader. He has indicated he wants to try for the post again in November but I'd rather doubt he's allowed. Unless the Texas district he patched together out of parts of Houston extending to the Rio Grande is composed of the completely blind or morally lost, he will not be re-elected and when Abramoff starts to sing, he'll probably be in worse legal shape than he's already in, if not behind bars.

The Culture of Corruption that is Republican Washington is shaking. Fifty-six percent of Americans believe Bush's unwarranted, unsupervised domestic espionage program is wrong. Of course, Nixon still had 25 percent approval when he left office, so don't read too much into that number. I'd bet if the question were phrased, "should the President be allowed, without court oversight, to listen in on your telephone conversations," the support would have been much lower. The Shrub isn't immune from the sale of America, witness his continued polyanna drive to have his tax cuts made permanent. Now we're not talking about the tax cuts that put a whopping $23 per month in my pocket, we're talking about the cuts to capital gains and dividends, both modes of income only of concern to those of us with more to invest in the stock markets than goes into tax-sheltered accounts such as IRAs and 401ks. His rich owners want this because it benefits them. He'll try to push it through congress while exercising "fiscal restraint" on those programs that benefit the poor and middle class.

Don't forget, Abramoff is only one of the K-street gang of lobbyists the Republicans managed to get installed. There are more. The culture of corruption that is Republican Washington goes far deeper than one lobbyist and sixty or so lawmakers. Delay is the first victim of the scandal. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.