Oh, please, Bob -- DON'T resign on your own! By all means, keep the Abramoff scandal on the front burner. Force the GOP leadership to hold a public session discussing your guilty plea and conviction on corruption, ending with a vote to expel you from Congress.

Come on, punk, MAKE OUR DAY! It would be the best imaginable gift you can give to a country suffering from all you and your friends have inflicted on us for years.

Wow, wouldn't it be interesting if Boehner could provide ONE SHRED of evidence to corroborate the assertion he makes in this AP story copied below?

Republicans control the House and all of its operations, plus the disgraced Mark Foley is a Republican, yet the esteemed Majority Leader can say this in public and apparently with a straight face: It's the fault of the DEMOCRATS -- it's ALL THEIR FAULT. Guess it's the same bizarre logic saying the utter lack of evidence WMDs existed in Iraq proves that they did in fact exist.

Just like Shays, Boehner is flailing about for any explanation for GOP scandals that will divert attention and blame from themselves.

Hot off the AP news wire, get a load of this excerpt from a slightly longer story:

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Majority Leader Boehner says Democrats endangered pages

DAVID PITT

Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa - House Majority Leader John Boehner on Friday accused Democrats of endangering House pages for political gain.

Boehner, speaking at a campaign event for 3rd District Republican candidate Jeff Lamberti, said Democratic operatives have known about inappropriate e-mails sent by former Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, to young male pages for some time. He said Democrats had been shopping the information around Washington as a political ploy.

"Someone who had this information allowed those 16-year-old pages to be at risk while they were playing their political games," said Boehner, R-Ohio. "I do not believe thus far that Republicans knew about these sexually explicit instant messages."

Ney to Resign Today

Friday, Oct. 13; 10:22 am

Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) will formally resign from the House today, according to two House GOP sources.

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This report was posted by Roll Call this morning, so may not be "operative" any longer, to pick up the old Nixon/Watergate phraseology. Should be interesting -- hard to imagine he'll hang on until after the election.

His excuse that he needs to serve his constituents rings hollow -- just like with Mark Foley, his staff can remain in the office to help with any concerns of his former constituents. What, in fact, can a disgraced congressman do that his staff cannot do better?

The actor John Houseman was famous for this line in his ads for Smith Barney: "They make money the old fashioned way...they earn it." Well, there are other ways to win elections beyond the old-fashioned way of simply garnering the most actual votes.

It's reported that HBO has a shattering documentary ready to unspool the week before voters head to the polls next month, in which they blow the lid off electronic voting in this country. Diverting money from certain races certainly could be in recognition that all is lost in those contests; it could also mean that Republicans needn't worry about "winning" -- because the final reported vote totals won't rely on actual, legal votes by individuals.

Good Lord, that sounds more cynical than I've ever believed I could be. However, cynicism is often just another name for reality well-seasoned by experience.

Can anyone out there correlate the specific voting methods being used in states with the specific races reportedly being "abandoned" by the national GOP? Is there a chance that Ohio's infamous Diebold provides the systems in the majority of those contests?

No, such a correlation proves nothing -- but it might start to explain an otherwise inexplicable White House confidence that all will go well on November 7th!

Wouldn't it be refreshing if we had a tradition in this country similar to Great Britain's -- with PUBLIC, DETAILED and PRINCIPLED resignations from the Cabinet over major policy disputes?

Certainly, one of the greatest disappointments of recent years was Colin Powell's failure to break publicly with Dubya over Iraq policy, giving voice to his reservations and disagreements so that the policy would change significantly.

But, no, the good soldier kept his mouth mostly shut until very recently, and as a result thousands of American soldiers have been killed or wounded grievously, and countless thousands of Iraqis have also suffered needlessly. The failure of Bush41's advisors to speak up en masse about Bush43's horrible performance in office is part and parcel of the same inexplicable reluctance -- don't we all have a duty to this COUNTRY that goes far beyond loyalty (or is it fealty?) to any particular President?