Not a happy new year for Jack Abramoff

I hope the friends you partied with these past years are ready for the fun they'll have this coming year after your guilty plea in both the Washington lobbying corruption case and the casino ship debacle in Florida.

On top of guilty pleas by Michael Scanlon - one-time Abramoff partner and former aide to Tom DeLay - and SunCruz partner Adam Kidan, as well as Former top procurement official in the Bush White House Office of Management and Budget Michae Safavian, who pleaded guilty to false statements in the Abramoff invesigation, the Abramoff plea is expected to rock Washington legistative circles throughout 2006, a midterm election year.

See these handy interactive guides to who's who in the Abramoff universe:

MSNBC

WaPo

The Original, at DeLay's House of Scandal (mostly about DeLay, but Abramoff et al loom large)

Now, I want Abramoff and his ilk to either do time or go away in disgrace, nipping their part in the New Normal in the bud while bringing down the hegemony of the current crop of corrupt Republican thugs mascarading as public servants. However, this post at Talking Points Memo is a good reminder that we shouldn't get carried away, a la Kenneth Starr.

No, the context of whatever glee I feel at someone else's misfortune is that, deep down, as both a rational patriot and a concerned citizen of the U.S., I believe that good will out. Those who have been following the rise and possibly imminent fall of the Republican Party circa Contract with America will have noted that they do not resemble the revolution they rode to power. They are not true conservatives.

I may be a true liberal and thus despised by many on the right. I, however, have nothing against true, rational conservatives. What's mascarading in Washington as conservatives are, for the most part, phonies, more pigs to the slop than promoters of conservative policy.

One look at the budget deficit and the recent transportation bill is enough to turn a real patriot into a revolutionary.

Let's forge a counterstrike against this New Normal. A blow was struck today against Jack Abramoff. Let the chips fall where they may. We'll be the better for it.