The Steele story has just about played itself out unless he resigns over it. And yet Vitter, Sanford and Ensign still have jobs.

PS there's a nice round up of international news perspective over at our sister site, Newstalgia.

Open thread below.

DOWNLOADS: 1248

PLAYS: 191

Embed

Isn't it interesting that Cokie Roberts spends her Monday morning segment on NPR talking about two admittedly disgraced Democrats who will not be holding their positions come Election Day.

Charlie Rangel and David Patterson are an admitted embarrassment to the Democrats. Rangel, like much of Congress, is long overdue for retirement, and Patterson's made such a mess of his career the sooner gone the better.

But why other than pure partisan hackery would Cokie Roberts spend her Monday morning spot talking about them and not mention that Ensign, Vitter, and Sanford still have jobs? Ensign paid off his mistress's family, Vitter was involved with a prostitute, and Sanford was MIA from his job for days on end. These guys still have the backing of their party? Family values much?

Cokie can always be counted on to live up to the old joke by Driftglass:

Dick Cheney is caught setting kittens on fire and throwing them at homeless veterans. What are the first three words out of Cokie Robert's mouth?

"But the Democrats..."

Next she'll be explaining how much Republican scandals help Mitt Romney. Sigh.

Malice in Wonderland - Outside the Tea Party, she avoids looking at the writing on her hands...Roses Ensign, Sanford, and Vitter look on from their well-fertilized garden...the White Rabbit (McCain) all of a sudden thinks time is running out.

Larger versions are linked (because they're big files) in this post.

PS Doesn't Malkin make a lovely Red Queen?

Open thread below...

Words of Power: While the econonomic royalists and their enforcers in politics and the media live the high life, will we he people fade into oblivion?

AMERICAblog News: Joseph Stiglitz predicted the global financial meltdown. So why can't he get any respect?

Calitics: In California, the Democrats caved. It's taken 31 years, but Howard Jarvis is finally going to get the wholesale destruction of public services he always wanted.

Intrepid Liberal Journal: The Death of Why: An interview with author Andrea Batista Schlesinger. It is Schlesinger’s contention that our culture promotes instant answers at the expense of inquiring.

The Satirical Political Report: In tribute to Cronkite, Fox changes its slogan

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Pancake City, The Blue Horde, Maggie's Madness, Al's Ozone Repair Kit

GOP 12: Sanford cheated on his wife and taxpayers

Alan Colmes’ Liberaland: Here's another jiveass "conservative."  Texas secession-promoter, Rick Perry, turned down stimulus $, now wants a loan

Stinque: Leader of GOP womanizers' Jesunazi sex cult is spiritual guru to Hillary Clinton

Nixon's Ghosts: Documents from the Archives: Pat Buchanan was for Affirmative Action before he was against it

Mondoweiss: Olmert tries to resuscitate one of the all-time great lies in the Oslo peace process

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Anatomy of a column

[click here for larger] Open Thread below...

You needed to escape FROM the bubble, Governor? Clearly, the bubble that Sanford escaped TO is the one that got him in trouble. An average cheating spouse can use a cell phone and email account to cover his/her affair, anywhere in the world. Sanford did more than travel and cheat. He consciously disappeared. That is a form of hate toward anyone who cared about him or depended upon him, at work or at home.

There is something psychotically narcissistic about a need to disappear from the world in which you have real-life obligations.

Open thread below....

I think it's just automatic now. When a high-profile Republican gets into trouble, Fox News steps in to mislead their sheep viewers by labeling them as Democrats.

Here's a short list of Fox's chyron hackery:

John McCain - Democrat

Joe Lieberman - Democrat

Arlen Spector - Democrat (when he was still a Republican!)

Mark Foley - Democrat

Media Matters also caught Fox listing a Democratic strategist as Bush's head of FEMA -- because his name happened to be Michael Brown. Oh, and we can't forget the time they announced Rep. William Jefferson's indictment using footage of Congressman John Conyers. They apologized to their audience, but never to Conyers personally.

I'm sure it was just an oversight, just like all the rest...riiiight. Have I missed any?

Dave N:

It's almost a clockwork thing.

Whenever Fox News wants you to forget that someone is actually a Republican, they, ah, accidentally label them a Democrat on their chryon and let it go. So they did that today, as you can see, while Mark Sanford was explaining that he had been in Argentina to screw around on his wife. (They corrected it in later chryons.)

Hardly the first time this has happened.

There was the time they ID'ed Mark Foley, in the midst of another sex scandal, as a Democrat too.

At other times with sex scandals, as with Sen. Larry Craig, they simply have forgotten to identify them as Republicans.

They've also done it when someone's Republican status is inconvenient:

When Arlen Specter was attacking conservative shibboleths, he got labeled a D too.

And then there was the time John McCain was labeled a Democrat too. At the time that just seemed weird, but now, with Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and a host of other conservatives promoting the notion that McCain was just a fake Republican anyway, it makes a certain kind of sense.

Fox sense, that is.