You get caught dirty, you gotta go.
Yup.
You can bet the bank, though, if they go after Pelosi, or Tom Daschle or (as we have already seen) Murtha, the story will be one of evil Republican retribution, etc. I don't mind cleaning the barn out. I think it's great, R or D. I would, however, like a level playing field.

"How can they be this greedy and corrupt? or stupid?"

Easy, they didn't think they would get caught and they only got into politics in the first place to feed their ego and make money. I would say the number of congressmen and senators who actually got into politics out of a desire to improve the country could be counted on one or two hands (maybe no hands).

State and local politics I think their would be more.

Why are you convicting anyone before all the evidence is presented?

Isn't it possible that the MSM has ginned-up this story like it has with most of the others and it could mostly end up to be much ado about nothing?

So far, we have only the MSM's side of the story. I'll wait for the other two sides -- the defendant's side and the truth.

Haven't the news reports on this story so far indicated that Abramoff spread the wealth to members of both parties? If so, why would the prosecutor only focus on these individuals? Perhaps they are only the intitial targets, with more on the way.

I agree with Bart. MSM reporting is neither reliable nor necessarily truthful, so I'll wait until information from more credible sources is available.

I also agree that if any of them are caught dirty, they need to go. If they want to be corrupt, they can run as democrats, like God intended.

One other item of note -- this from the article...

"The department is examining claims that Mr Abramoff and associates bribed politicians with money, gifts, expensive meals and holidays in exchange for legislative action favourable to Mr Abramoff's clients."

Uh, isn't that a daily occurrence with the K-street gang??

Both Reid and Pelosi are on the short list. Wouldn't that be loverly if they went to jail.

All you have to know about Congress is how many politicians go into the job moderately wealthy and walk out multi-millionaires. Gee, I wonder how that happened?

Dignity is a rare thing anymore. The gamesmanship of taking excessive advantage of opportunities in congress and other bodies is no different than the systemic corruption that occurs in the Workmans Comp arena.

The whole system is based on bribery - candidates raise the millions they need to run by implicitly promising to provide benefits to the campaign donors. Sometimes they cross the (legal) line and the connection between campaign donation and benefit becomes very clear. We won't improve the system til we get rid of the $. What'a always amazed me is how little it takes to bribe these politicians - 10 to 20,000 and result in multi-million dollar payouts for the donors.

We won't improve the system til we get rid of the $.

But how's that going to happen? I don't think it's possible, and I think that any attempt will just backfire and take away our rights in the process.

The best (and only) remedy is to require enough transparency.

I'm not so sure about that. Big tobacco has had many big time campaign donors, but when the outcry was so great the government folded and pretty much blanked the futures of the tobacco farmers. Politicians are not myopic enough to deny the enevitable, and in this age of transparent politics everything is pretty much predictable. The farce is good for aesthetic value anyway!

"How can they be this greedy and corrupt? Or stupid?"

Well, after watching Teddy get away with it for over 30 years, I guess they figure, why not take a shot?

Gotta give it up to the K-man, he has elevated being a life-long scumbag politician to an art-form.

this rodent's plea deal xould be conditioned upon cooperation w/ yet another political prosecution of Repubs
(as Dems skulk around behind the scenes to cover their backsides for doing the same things)

any serious curruption prosecution would start w/ the former Grifters in Chief

"How can they be this greedy or corrupt?"......

One word......Arrogance!

A large majority of our elected representatives are self-absorbed hacks. They are ignoring the the important issues that need attention in this country. See today's WSJ editorial Year of Living Unseriously.

Maybe it's time to revist the issue of term limits. Or at least prevent lawyers from holding elective office.

Sorry. Year of Living Unseriously.

Maybe this will be the start of some long over due house cleaning. Our elected officials are as corrupt as any to be found in any two bit third world government. The whole rotten bunch should be swept out of office and thrown in prison. After a fair trial by an honest jury of course.