Yet another Republican scandal

Never underestimate the value of brazeness in this shallow media culture. The Republicans are brazen enough to claim that Jack Abramoff is a bi-partisan scandal. It's a transparent pack of lies that doesn't stand up to the most rudimentary scrutiny, of course. But spoken with enough shameless conviction, it'll fly on Hardball.

How can the Democratic party stop dithering and start making sure the Republicans are paying for their heinous transgressions? Obviously, they need to pull Mike the Mad Biologist out of his lab to stratagize for them. Oh wait...Mike just put everything they need to know in a short blogpost:

It now appears that Congressional staffers–check that–Republican Congressional staffers were leaking inside political information to day traders, who would use knowledge of impending legislation (or the lack thereof) to pick stocks. I have no idea if this is legal or not, but it is reprehensible (and I find it hard to believe that the staffers did it for free).

Sadly, the Democrats are probably going to screw this one up just like every other Republican scandal. Here's two very simple rules that they won't follow:

1. "It's wrong." When Tweety Matthews or anyone else gets into legalisms, cut them off, fix them with a level stare, and say, "It's wrong. They're public servants, and it's wrong." And that's all you say, over and over again.
2. Do not propose legislation to fix this (digby discusses this in reference to another Republican scandal–so many scandals...). This is the Republicans' mess. It's their people and their problem. Don't throw them a lifeline by suggesting that there's something wrong with the political system: this is solely another example of Republican moral degeneracy (see "It's wrong"). For the love of the Intelligent Designer, can we please stop wiping the Republican Party's ass when it shits itself?

Well, it's back to the lab for Mike. His work here is done.