Doolittle gets Done

The hits keep on coming for those with connections to the Jack Abramoff to-do. The latest to tiptoe to the edge of the high-dive is northern California Republican Congressman John Doolittle.

The story goes like this:

1. Doolittle's wife creates company as a fundraiser
2. Doolittle hires wife's company to raise funds for Doolittle's 2006 re-election campaign
3. Doolittle's wife charges said re-election campaign 15% of value of donations, nicely funding Doolittle's personal, as well as political, coffers.
4. Doolittle's wife company, and Doolittle himself, have a lot to do with Jack Ambramoff, who has contributed to Doolittle's re-election campaign AND hired wife's company
5. Feds get wise, start investigation
6. Doolittle resigns leadership post on House committee.

For a current resume of events, click here. For background articles, try here and here.

DeTocque wonders if this is the tipping point or just the wake of political corruption. Kudos to Republican House leader John Boehner for forcing Doolittle off the committee. But the larger questions remains: is Doolittle off the committee only because he got caught? Does this merely force the corrupt ones further underground? Will party leaders be forthright in admitting all cases of corruption and removing the guilty (or at least the ones with Virginia farm boys poking around their back yards)? Will the public stand for it?

We know that politicians generally act in concert with their level of nervousness about their chances for re-election. If the Republicans weren't facing such an uphill climb in 2008, would Boehner even care?

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DeTocque is off for some loverly RnR to Central America as of tomorrow. Back on April 30.