Dems Usher in New Era of Dull Scandals

Say farewell to hilarious sex hijinks and hello to corruption and related bummers

By SARA K. SMITH

Updated 6:30 AM EST, Mon, Jan 5, 2009

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For many years, Republicans represented the party of salacious homosexual bathroom sex-trysts while Democrats confined themselves to more workaday financial improprieties, such as storing massive collections of marked bills in their freezers. You'd have been hard pressed to pin a pay-for-play scheme on a Democrat because they were too unimportant: they just didn't have any political influence worth selling.

Now Democrats have reclaimed the White House and both parties of Congress, so of course they're obliged to pull double duty in both sexual and political scandals. Let's see, they've got the sex scandals pretty well covered: who can forget such luminaries as Eliot Spitzer, Patron Saint of Hookers; Tim Mahoney, the proud Florida Democrat with multiple mistresses who replaced the Republican with the "drinking problem"; the lizard-tongued humanoid adulterer John Edwards; and last but not least, America's greatest mayor and sexiest texter, Kwame Kilpatrick.

A recent flood of news about Democrats doing improper, non-sexual stuff for favors means they've got the political side of scandals covered, too. Let's review:

Senate seat salesman Rod Blagojevich
Congressman Charlie Rangel, whom the New York Times is constantly catching in the middle of one seedy-looking situation or another
Secretary-of-State nominee Hillary Clinton, who passed legislation to help a developer shortly before her husband accepted that developer's $100,000 donation to his presidential library

And the latest: the portly and affable Bill Richardson, who couldn't be Secretary of State because he would have been murdered, personally, by the Clintons, so instead he settled for Commerce Secretary before he got roped into a grand jury investigation. Apparently some brilliant financial company that advised Jefferson County, Alabama into near-bankruptcy was also hired to work its magic on the state of New Mexico after it donated 100 grand to various political action committees formed by Bill Richardson.

So now Richardson has said to Barack Obama, "Pls do not consider me for Commerce, as I have this little grand jury problem to deal with." This is really too bad, because Bill Richardson spoke Spanish! Also he was very smart, and experienced in talking with nasty dictators. Now Obama will have to find some other sucker to help him revive the economy and control the weather.