I still have no idea what BENGHAZI! is about, but I guess this summary is as good as any. Sure, it's nonsensical (Obama never "lied") and makes no sense (the White House and the State Department coordinated the messaging after the attack, not the other way around).

But really, when it comes down to it, it's a scandal because, because they said so, that's why. Also, Americans died!*

*Unlike on 9/11, in Iraq, during Hurricane Katrina, or any of those embassy attacks that occurred under Bush.

Atrios was right the other day -- wingers have a rage addiction. So here we have Dick Cheney's cabana boy outraged that Inauguration Day falls on a Sunday this year. That means Obama is being sworn in on January 20th, in a private ceremony, and they'll be a public ceremony on the 21st. Just like Eisenhower did it.

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution set January 20th as the official inaugural date. Because January 20, 1957 fell on a Sunday, President Eisenhower took the oath of office for his second term in a private White House ceremony.

But to be fair to Christie, Eisenhower was a Republican, which obviously makes all the difference.

[/snark]

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Oh, C&Lers, you've picked a good one, and timely too. In 38th place, we have a March 4th rant about Republican family values as compared to everyone else's. Yes indeed, it's a timely reminder, given Newt's newly discovered piety and grace through the blessings of Catholic bishops and the lovely Callista.

But you see, It's OK If You're A Republican (IOKIYAR).

It's always helpful to review how hypocritical Newt Gingrich is when it comes to "family values."

You know, on one level, I'm happy that the DOJ is no longer the overtly partisan and retaliatory entity it was during the Bush years. However, I'm flummoxed by this seemingly overarching extension in the other direction. Reuters' Murray Waas breaks the story:

Ensign's once promising political career was over because of the disclosures, but he was no longer in any legal jeopardy.

The Justice Department had informed him in December 2010 that he would not face criminal charges. An aggressive Senate Ethics Committee investigation was still pursuing Ensign, but that probe would be shelved once he resigned.

As Ensign was preparing to leave the Senate, investigators for the Senate Ethics Committee were attempting at the 11th hour to obtain a trove of email correspondence concerning the payments to the Hamptons. The trouble for the committee was that Ensign's attorneys insisted the emails were privileged.

The committee had unsuccessfully battled for 18 months to obtain them.

A Reuters examination of the Ensign probe shows the case then took a sudden turn: Ensign reversed course and handed over more than 1,000 sensitive emails between himself and his attorneys and other top advisers. The decision "puzzled" congressional investigators who thought they would never see the emails and baffled even most of his own closest advisers, say people close to the case.

Those emails are apparently very incriminating, including ones by Ensign himself acknowledging that his coverup of the affair effectively ended his Senate career and by his attorneys that the payments to the Hamptons would inevitably trigger notice of the Senate Ethics Committee. Why Ensign released the emails is somewhat of a mystery. Did he assume he was out of the woods since the DOJ had already told them they were closing the books on this? Then he wasn't paying attention to his attorneys, who have warned him that this could instigate a re-opening of the investigation. If that's so, no investigation on Ensign's coverup could be complete without a full investigation of Tom Coburn and the part he played to broker the deal between Ensign, his parents and the Hamptons.

Ironically, this news comes the same week as the DOJ announced that they would seek an indictment against John Edwards for improper use of campaign funds to keep his own extramarital affair quiet. Of course, when you're a Democrat, you can expect much more stringent investigations by the Department of Justice.

The unexpected last minute developments in the Ensign case raise serious questions as to why the Justice Department closed its file on the Senator without first obtaining the crucial emails later seen by the Senate.

A senior Justice Department official told Reuters that the decision to publicly say that they were no longer pursuing Ensign displayed bad judgment, harmed the investigation, and will likely leave lingering effects on the Department's reputation in prosecuting public officials.

The Department is already smarting after the dismissal of charges against the late Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, after disclosures of prosecutorial misconduct.

My initial reaction was to roll my eyes at the lackluster and careless performance once again by Attorney General Eric Holder, but I've been corrected by journalists that this likely never did get to Holder's desk. I'm not sure if it is helpful, but here is the contact information for the DOJ, and certainly, having citizens demand that the DOJ re-open the case in light of these new revelations can't hurt.

ABC News' Jonathan Karl sat down this week for this gimmicky "Subway Series" interview with Sen. Tom Coburnof Oklahoma. Coburn opined on Grover Norquist, the tax structure (where to his credit, he was surprisingly honest, admitting that our taxes are at a 100 year low) the deficit, leaving the Gang of 6, effectively killing it, and the debt ceiling.

But note what wasn't mentioned: Coburn's role in the Ensign sex scandal:

Contained in the 67-page report {written by the Senate Ethics Committee investigating John Ensign's conduct}, however, is troubling evidence of the central role that current Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) played in trying to keep Ensign’s mistress and her husband quiet — evidence that contradicts Coburn’s previous public statements on the matter. In July 2009, Coburn said he was consulting with Ensign “as a physician and as an ordained deacon” and he considered it a “privileged communication that I will never reveal to anybody.” Asked about the claim from Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign’s mistress, that he “urged Ensign to pay the Hamptons millions of dollars,” Coburn said, “I categorically deny everything he said.”[..]

Coburn eventually agreed to cooperate with the Ethics Committee; their findings on the level of his involvement are startling. According to the committees report, Coburn actively assisted in the discussions of a hush money package, negotiating a proposed package from $8 million down to $2.8 million.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that sounds like some seriously ethically-challenged behavior to me. Ensign left office the day before the report came out and had the unbelievable luck to do so just before Osama bin Laden was killed, so the entire event flew under the radar of the media. But Coburn continues his luck that no one in the media bothers to ask him about his role whatsoever.

So what will it take? What will make the media wake up and do their job? Or is it just okay to be brokering hush money to your colleagues mistress if you're a Republican?

What does it take for Chris Matthews and Hardball to marginalize convicted criminal Tom Delay and not offer him time to lamely proclaim his innocence? My god, he actually served up a softball in the form of asking if Delay thought there was a conspiracy that resulted in his conviction. And showing himself to be the arrogant yet poor thinker that he is, Delay eagerly grabs the notion of his conviction being politically motivated and runs with it. The only problem, he admits that there was nothing wrong with the jury that convicted him. Then Tweety suggests that maybe Delay shouldn't have hung out with those miscreants Michael Scanlon and Jack Abramoff, because hanging out with these convicted criminals looked bad for Tom. Um, Tweety? Any awareness at all that maybe the reason Tom Delay looks bad is because he committed crimes along with Abramoff?

I've said for years now that Chris Matthews' deep love of politics is not connected to any sense of moral compass. It doesn't matter if you're on the side of angels for Tweety, it's all about how you play the game. As Jon Stewart aptly pointed out, that playbook has been written already, and it's still the one that Matthews sticks to.