RENZI'S REVENGE ON THE GOP?

Arizona Republican Rick Renzi isn't thrilled with the lack of support he's gotten from the Republican Party since a Grand Jury announced his astounding 35 criminal indictments on everything from bribery and money laundering all the way up to extortion. His party left him hanging in the wind to die... slowly. They look away his committee positions, planted news stories in his district indicating he should resign and eventually even his ally John McCain kicked him off the Double Talk Express. (He had been co-chairman of McCain's campaign but McCain can only have unindicted crooks on his campaign, not indicted ones.)

There is nothing that Republican Party wants more than to lull voters into forgetting they have been the party of systemic corruption for years. Renzi isn't helping that at all. His trial was scheduled to begin this month and would surely have been over long before McCain and Republican incumbents have to face the voters in November. But after Renzi asked for a delay, a federal court announced today that the potentially explosive trial will begin October 14, smack in the middle of the election campaign.

Complicating the matter further, is that McCain, in a pique of typically hysterical vindictive pigheadedness, forced the local AZ-01 Republican Party to jettison their favorite candidate to try to hold Renzi's seat, Kris Mayes (who McCain holds a grudge against because she once worked for the Arizona Republic), in favor of a McCain crony, Ken Bennett. The problem with Bennett isn't that he's a McCain crony but that he is widely hated in AZ-01 for using his influence to free his son from punishment after the younger Bennett was convicted of using broomsticks and flashlights in 40 incidents of rape against 18 young boys, many repeatedly.