[GOP Corruption]

Corrupt, Stupid, and Evil

There's a sad, stupid little legislator in Oregon named Dan Doyle. In the '04 election cycle, Doyle quit his job (as a lawyer, natch), and started funneling all his campaign cash into the ol' family bank account. On the federal finance reports, he submitted false records of paying off local businesses, who, of course, immediately outed the hapless bonehead. (Just for good measure, his wife Victoria also dabbled in the new business and swindled donors to her own campaign to become a county clerk. She lost.) Now Doyle has plead guilty to his fraud, and faces 55 years in the pokey. So egregious was the crime that the Oregon legislature actually passed new campaign finance laws to prevent the fraud from happening in the future.

Now, just to put a pretty cherry on top of this stinking scandal, here's what Doyle's lawyer had to say to defend Doyle. According to him, Doyle had to steal just to cover living expenses:

"Pay the mortgage, put food on the table, buy school clothes for the kids, that sort of thing. He spent so much time devoted to serving the public through the legislature that he wasn't able to make a living sufficient to take care of his family and he was mortified by that."

This would be a sad tale of a stupid, greedy politician--the Dems have 'em, too--if it didn't come in the immediate aftermath of the Katrina incompetence, during the great Rove scandal, and while hurricane Jack Abramoff continues to tear through the Republican party. I have a friend who mentions privately that the Democrats need to be a little more vocal about identifying and excoriating Republicans who are "corrupt, stupid, and evil." Here, here.

You'd think we were on that in Oregon, wouldn't you? But the scandal appears to stir little interest. At my other site, Blue Oregon, an open thread went up earlier today. When I found it a few minutes ago, care to guess how many comments there were? Zip. Apparently we lack that GOP instinct to make every negative act by a single politician a metaphor for the corruption of the other party.

Let me say it: the modern GOP is corrupt, stupid, and evil. Dan Doyle is a symptom.