HAS ANYONE EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT REVOKING SUNUNU'S CAPITOL HILL PARKING PRIVILEGES? OR IS IT A CASE OF HE STOLE THE ELECTION FAIR 'N' SQUARE?

Shaun Hansen was only 30 when he helped White House-based Republican operatives Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove steal the crucial U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire for John Sununu. When he finally pleaded guilty yesterday he was 34. Wow! That took a long time! Although other crooked Republicans have been found guilty-- and went to prison for this crime against Democracy-- Sununu is still allowed to vote in the U.S. Senate and still collects a 6-figure salary and will forever collect a giant pension. And neither Mehlman nor Rove has ever even been questioned in the case, although they gave the orders and, at least in the instance of Mr. Mehlman, coordinated the criminal acts and followed every minute detail.

Hansen pleaded guilty yesterday to "playing a role" in a Republican scheme to jam Democratic phone lines in New Hampshire on Election Day in November 2002. he directed his employess to place something like 1,000 calls to jam the phone banks at Democratic Party headquarters in order to prevent the get out the vote effort, which allowed Sununu to slip by popular Governor Jeanne Shaheen.

Hansen will be sentenced on my birthday (February 20) and could get up to 7 years and a half million dollar fine but that is unlikely. The local kingpin of the scheme, a former Bush campaign chairman for New England and the New England regional chairman of the Republican National Committee, James Tobin got off with less than a year in the slammer. Did I mention that neither Mehlman nor Rove is in jail? And that Sununu is still supposedly a senator?

[about the picture: Rove and Mehlman rarely pose together and even Republicans don't like being photographed with the two of them. You never know what's going to come back and bite you in the ass. This was the only one I could find.]

PS: How come Glenn Beck doesn't ask Sununu if he's working for America's Middle eastern enemies? Or is it official CNN policy to just ask that of Democrats and African Americans?