House Republicans, apparently determined to hand the Democrats a majority, have decided to circle the wagons around a corrupt Democrat; see here for the tip of the iceberg of RedState’s comprehensive coverage of this idiocy.
Handed a golden opportunity to fight corruption and score political points at the same time, Speaker Hastert instead basically recorded a Democratic campaign commercial – on behalf of a corrupt Democrat! He has acted like a Congressman first, a Republican second, and a defender of honest government and the rule of law not at all. This is one of the poorest examples of political judgment I have ever seen.
You know, I’ve been as big a critic as anyone of the tendency to declare political obituaries over 1-week news stories; how many times, for example, have we read that thus-and-so will be the end of John McCain or Hillary Clinton? But this Hastert/Jefferson thing has just about broken the back of my remaining optimism about the 2006 elections. It’s appalling to see the GOP concocting bogus legal privileges to stonewall an investigation, and doubly so to see it done on behalf of a Democrat, in a situation where there could not possibly be less to gain. It is impossible to watch the GOP leadership’s behavior here and have any faith that the relevant decisionmakers have any political instincts at all.