Republican Sleeze

The Republicans have become so sleezy that even conservative columnist David Brooks objects. He notes:

Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!

After exposing recent abuses, he concludes by noting "It took a village. The sleazo-cons thought they could take over K Street to advance their agenda. As it transpired, K Street took over them."

With control of Congress being such a lucrative business, the Republicans are doing everything possible to hold onto power, ethical or not. Georgia Republicans are taking ideas out of the DeLay playbook with redistricting.

Ed Kilgore, sitting in at Talking Points Memo, looks at yet another act of abuse, but his theories on why we see such corruption more under Republicans is worth repeating:

There are Democratic and Republican Commissars, but in my experience, the GOPers are the most numerous and vicious. Why? For the same reason that you tend to have more corruption in Republican administrations: when you don't much care about the positive uses of government, and you don't have the political guts to cut it back as much as you would like, then government becomes little more than a vast patronage operation. And if chaos in services ensues, hey, it's just more proof that government's bad to begin with, right?