Donnybrooks and Shockwaves

Today's Times has a piece on Bob Ney's guilty plea in connection with the Abramoff investigation and Ney's resignation from the House. Since I've been following the Abramoff donnybrook pretty closely, it gets me thinking:

1) I remember vividly some bloggers saying that the "Republican Spin Machine" would bury the Abramoff scandal and that their conspiratorial efforts would mean nobody would remember all of the misdeeds done by Abramoff's contacts in Congress. I wonder what they're thinking now. The Abramoff investigation has already brought down a couple of Republicans and two or three more may follow.

2) When I gave a Times Talk (http://vodreal.fhsu.edu/ramgen/ctelt/adp/timestalk27.rm) {Real Player needed} on the Abramoff affair, a colleague suggested that Abramoff, Delay, and their ilk were the first people to play this corrupt little game. Bull. This kind of thing has been going on since the beginning of the republic (see Sabato's Dirty Little Secrets for a nice rundown of scandals in American politics) and now the difference is with federal campaign finance disclosure we can track it down and punish the people who do it. I've never been a fan of campaign finance limits, but disclosure's one of the best things that's happened in a while.

3) The effect on the November elections. In April, the thought that Democrats might take over the House of Representatives was as likely as the Yankees getting drop-kicked in the ALDS. Now one's happened and the other one is at least in the realm of possibility. DeLay, Ney, Foley, and other retirements from the House mean that there are a number of Republican seats exposed to competition. If all the open seats go Democratic and just a few incumbent Republicans lose, the House could narrowly switch control. I still don't think it will happen, but it will be close and I wouldn't die of surprise if it did.