Bill Frist may be innocent in his sale of the family business' stock weeks before it tanked due to poor earnings, but it is the Security and Exchange Commission that is pressing the issue. The SEC is part of the Bush administration, and has been under Bush control for a little under five years, pretty much ensuring that the liberals didn't set this one up.
The people most upset about Cronyism right now are the religious right as they look at Harriet Miers. True, we were pretty pissed off that former horse judge judge Michael Brown's incompetence lost lives, but it was when Fox News reporters on the scene yelled at their anchors that things were really bad that it his the fan. Then Michelle Malkin (hardly a liberal) started attacking the appointment of Julie Myers to the head of immigration control with the headline: NO MORE CRONYISM: BUSH DHS NOMINEE DOESN'T DESERVE THE JOB.
And the right wing has gone off the rails about the cronyism in appointing Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Democrats reacted with caution and, sometimes, with approval to the appointment and the blogs and religous right folks went ballistic. The White House has held conference calls and pleaded with both the internet kids and the churchified to accept Miers as their own, but it is not happening.
Now, you might get Tom DeLay as a liberal attack, except for the fact that Ronnie Earle is hardly a partisan hack. He has indicted 12 Democrats and (prior to the Texas Campaign Finance scandal) four Republicans. He has a winning record of 13-3. If he lets his partisan Democrat leaning influence his work as a District Attoney he has a funny way of showing it.
Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and maybe Vice President Richard "Dick" Cheney are in deep doo-doo over the outing of Valerie Wilson, nee Plame, but it was not liberals who led the attack. The CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the leak. The Justice Department tried, but discovered too many conflicts and hired a special prosecutor. The prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed a United State's Attorney by President George Bush, and is a Republican. Not a single liberal there.
The same Justice Department used a federal grand jury to indict Jack Abramoff in the SunCruz Casino's scandal for wire fraud and conspiracy. His co-indictees are also accused of a mob-style hit.
The USA Today profile I posted a couple of days ago says "Fitzgerald...is registered to vote with no party affiliation." I'm not sure where "Poppy" got the idea that Fitzgerald is a Republican; he-or-she doesn't source the comment.
But whether that specific point is right or wrong, I think the larger point is well taken: However much we liberals are enjoying the shitstorm Bush Republicans are currently experiencing, we can't claim much credit for it at all. We're Democrats, for god's sake, we can't even decide whether to put on our shoes or find our keys first.
The Republican party is being brought down by two things: Its own hubris, and the fact that there are still some actual, honest-to-god patriots among them. Those who put...well, there's no other way to say it: Those who put truth, justice and the American way above politics.
This will likely be the nicest thing you ever see me say about any conservatives that are not known to me personally, so you might want to save it.
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