Ted Stevens, Mitch McConnell And Susan Collins-- Trio Of Despair

A real axis of evil

Unless the rumors about Larry Craig becoming a lobbyist for HRC are true, it could be very lonely for Lindsey Graham come January. Lonely like in "Gee, this closet is so empty these days... I hope David Dreier, Patrick McHenry, or Adrian Smith runs for the Senate soon." That's right, after Larry Craig's little tragedy in the Minneapolis-St Paul Airport toilet with officer Karsnia, and the increasingly likely forced departure of Kentucky gay groper Mitch McConnell, poor Lindsey will be left all by his lonesome-- the only closet queen in the whole Senate! How fair is that, Mr. Slave?

Anyway, I'm not cheering as loudly as everyone I know over Miss McConnell's impending political obliteration-- primarily because of the horror Chuck Schumer has replacing him, the corrupt and reactionary (don't those two words always get shmooshed together these days?) Bruce Lunsford. Lunsford is likely to be an improvement over McConnell-- the way a D- is better than an F, although, in this case, the F was at least not inside the Democratic caucus inexorably dragging it further and further in the direction of even more corporate-oriented corruption and further and further away from the interests of working families the Democrats always regret stabbing in the back-- though only when they are absolutely forced to by deplorable monsters like Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh... and, of course, Bruce Lunsford.

Most Democrats would rather cut off a toe than vote for McConnell even if it does mean that a sleazy and treacherous slimebag like Lunsford winds up in the Senate. And i wouldn't urge anyone to cut off anything. On the other hand, McConnell, who is not just the single most corrupt member of the Senate, he is also spending millions of dollars of corruptly acquired corporate bribes to blanket the state with TV ads attacking Lunsford's own corruption! And just to be consistent, this morning McConnell called on the Senate's runner-up most corrupt member, Ted Stevens, to resign. Cozy, since the two of them have been blatantly money-laundering illicit campaign contributions to each other for years. Miss McConnell:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has joined the growing chorus of congressional Republicans calling for Sen. Ted Stevens to resign in the wake of his conviction earlier this week on seven corruption-related felonies.

McConnell, in Kentucky campaigning for his own re-election, told the Lexington Herald-Leader that Stevens should step aside, and that he should do it before Election Day, when the Alaska Republican is trying to win a seventh full term.

“I think he should resign immediately,” said McConnell, Kentucky’s senior senator, who is locked in a competitive race against businessman Bruce Lunsford. “If he did not do that ... there is a 100 percent certainty that he would be expelled from the Senate.”

Not all Republicans who have taken thousands and thousands of dollars of Big Oil bribes via Stevens are abandoning him in his time of need though. Susan Collins, Maine's rubber stamp Republican hack has taken immense sums of "contributions" from some of the most corrupt companies in America, funneled her way courtesy of Steven's generous PAC. And even though most Republicans are distancing themselves from the convicted felon-- including McCain and Palin-- Susan Collins is standing by her man (just like she always has with Bush). Maine's other Republican senator, Olympia Snowe, who isn't as crooked and sleazy as Collins is calling for Stevens to resign immediately. It is expected that Collins will buckle under the pressure and be denouncing Stevens by Monday.

"If Susan Collins really believes that convicted felons have a place in the Senate, she clearly does not represent the kind of change that people in Maine are hungry for in Washington," said Rebecca Pollard, communications director for the Maine Democratic Party. "Whether or not Alaska voters re-elect him a week after a jury of his peers found him guilty should not determine whether Susan Collins thinks he should remain in the Senate."
 
"She can't take a pass on this. As a sitting Senator and candidate for re-election to the Senate chamber, Collins doesn't get a pass on telling Maine people whether she thinks Stevens remains worthy of his Senate seat when he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work on his house from a big oil company and was convicted on seven felony counts," Pollard said.

As odious as McConnell is, I'd rather see the end of Collins. With him you pretty much know what you're going to get. She's deceptive and sneaky and if he goes, we're stuck with Lunsford. If Collins goes, the Senate gets one of the finest members of the House, Congressman Tom Allen, moving across Capitol Hill.