Putting on Stupid Caps

Among the ten or so folks who stop by, there might be one or two who doesn't read Atrios, so, as a public service, here's a bit of news about Brian Darling, who wrote the GOP "Talking Points" that celebrated the Terry Schiavo tragedy as a "great political issue" for the Republicans.

I wonder how Brian feels about dead puppies and kittens...

For the record, Darling was a former aide to Senator Mel Martinez of Florida--and, as you probably guessed, "former" means in the very recent past, i.e., the memo removed--for the time being--HIS political sustenance. However, I don't think this is his curtain call--not unlike another (part-time) resident of Florida in the more distant past, we'll have Darling to kick around for a while. To wit:

Darling, whose resignation was confirmed by Martinez aides late Wednesday, is a former partner at the GOP powerhouse lobbying firm Alexander Strategy Group, founded by a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.

Speaking of DeLay--and also from Atrios--here's a link to Mark Kleiman, who brings up an interesting element of one of Tom's latest bits of dirty laundry to rise to the top of the cauldron, namely, the trip to Russia that was financed by pro-Russian lobbyists:

Kevin Drum offers another good reason to move to expel DeLay right now. Kevin recalls correctly that DeLay was on Milosevich's side against Bill Clinton. He doesn't mention the extraordinary maneuver by which DeLay managed to send an encouraging message to the enemy while our men and women in uniform were in harm's way, by promising Clinton a resolution of support for the air war and then arranging for it to come to the floor and fail. (Of course, DeLay wasn't alone among Republicans, back then, in hating the President more than he hated the mass murderer the President was trying to rein in.)

And now we know, as Kevin points out, that DeLay was doing all of this as the beneficiary of largesse from the Russian security services. Taking an expensive vacation at the expense of the military of a foreign power to support America's enemies probably doesn't amount to treason under the Constitutional definition, but it comes close. (click on the link to Kleiman in order to get to other references).

Geez. What sleezeballs. If the Democratic Party can't work with this, then maybe the country truly IS lost...