RW-(the original) Dancing Madly Backwards Through A Liberal Minefield

I've always been amused by Democrats frothing at the mouth, year after year, about how this is their time and they are going to sweep into power in the Fall. Watching them try to pin the "culture-of-corruption" label on Republicans has been very entertaining. However there is finally a corruption scandal that may well sweep the Democrats into power in the House this time. In a script that could only be written in Hollywood or come to life in Washington, William Jefferson (D-LA) may well do it. The ridiculous position taken by House Republicans, led by Denny Hastert, that Congress is above the law will do more to turn off Republican voters than any perceived GOP scandal. When you couple that with the fact Democrats will have to quit barking "corruption", which only served to energize the Republican base anyway, you have the recipe for a huge electoral victory for the party of asses this year.

Fortunately for the rest of us in the real world there is time to recover. Memo to Speaker Hastert: You had better go hardline on border enforcement and it would be a good idea to quietly compromise with the Justice department.

Let's see how Mark Steyn views this:

Which current member of the Republican Party's creme de la creme could utter that Reagan line and mean it? Take the speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert. Last week, something very unusual happened: There was a story out of Washington that didn't reflect badly on the Republican Party's competence or self-discipline. It was about a Democrat! Fellow from Louisiana called William Jefferson. Corruption investigation. Don't worry, if you're too distracted by "American Idol," it's not hard to follow, you just need to know one little visual image: According to an FBI affidavit, this Democrat congressman was caught on video taking a hundred-grand bribe from a government informer and then storing it in his freezer. That's what the scandal's supposed to be: Democrat Icecapades of 2006. All the GOP had to do was keep out of the way and let Jefferson and his Dem defenders skate across the thin ice like Tonya Harding with her lumpy tights full of used twenties. It was a perfect story: No Republicans need be harmed in the making of this scandal.

So what does Hastert do? He and the House Republican leadership intervene in the case on behalf of the Democrat: They're strenuously objecting to the FBI having the appalling lese majeste to go to court, obtain a warrant and search Jefferson's office. In constitutional terms, they claim it violates the separation of powers. In political terms, they're climbing right into the Frigidaire with Jefferson's crisp chilled billfold. What does the Republican base's despair with Congress boil down to? That the Gingrich revolutionaries have turned into the pampered potentates of pre-1994 Washington, a remote insulated arrogant elite interested only in protecting the privileges of the permanent governing class. But how best to confirm it? Hmm. What about if we send the Republican speaker out to argue that congressmen are beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. law-enforcement agencies?