With all the joy-jumping and hand-rubbing over the GOP's quagmire of corruption, I still don't feel too confident that this one's a gimme.
Pretty much the only aspect of The Ruling Party's troubles most Americans know about is the latest front pager about Delay. They have been fed a steady diet of "IT'S A PARTISAN WITCH HUNT!" clips from every media outlet that isn't offered for free at the local liquor store. Ask your neighbor or your co-worker if they've ever heard of Abramoff and Safavian. They'll probably assume you're talking about a lounge act in the Poconos. The Frist "scandal?" It is usually mentioned as an aside to the Delay thing, with a similarly thick helping of qualifiers and obfuscaters heaped on top of the stinky mess. Most GOP people I know instinctively hack up the "oh dear, corruption in Washington! Who knew?!" hairball as they laugh off the demise of the constitution as a quaint reference to a bygone era when men wore powdered wigs and spoke in Ye's and Thou's.
The ignorance isn't our neighbor's or co-workers' fault, although one could certainly argue that ten minutes a day on DU or KOS would offer enough proof of The American Empire's teetering on the edge to fill seven years worth of "bi-partisan" Ken Starr inquiries. But until and unless the true magnitude of these scandals rise to the pop-culture level of Natalie Holloway or Britney's Baby, they're bound to remain under the comforting spell of media-massaged ignorance.
No, I am not celebrating a return to sanity yet. Delay is an evil, vindictive, mean spirited political thug, just like his boss. And there are not only billions of dollars at stake, they're facing abject humiliation and perhaps another decade or two of ostracism and marginalization in the halls of power and the cocktail parties of beltway babblers. Pride is big with these guys. Not to mention the wrench it's going to throw into their World Domination scheme.
I'm glad to see at least SOME of this reaching the front pages, but the message is still being carefully crafted by the GOP powers and massaged and softened by the vacuous Barbies & Kens of Cable News. I don't believe for a minute that just because Delay lost his formal title that it will cause him to put down his hammer.
Mean-spirited, vindictive SOB's don't work that way.