If April showers bring May flowers, then this April's deluge of conservative wrong-doing should produce a bumper crop of right-wing resignations and convictions later this year. Over the past few weeks, Republican luminaries past and present have offered up an almost endless string of gaffes, missteps, ethical lapses and criminal behavior.
Let's start with in Washington with Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumseld's right-hand man and Iraq war architect at the Pentagon who now finds himself in serious trouble over at the World Bank. With his dictatorial style and allegations he arranged an unprecedented promotion and raise for his colleague-girlfriend, Wolfowitz now faces calls for his resignation. And here he thought that holes in his socks were his biggest problem.
Across town, Senator Pete Domenici, known as "el jefe" in his home state of New Mexico, is now in deep caca over his role in the U.S. attorney firings. Domenici "lawyered up" in the wake of revelations that he pressed sack U.S. attorney David Iglesias over possible indictments of NM Democrats. Now the AP is reporting the once-invincible Domenici may retire in 2008. As Iglesias himself might have said, Domenici "can't handle the truth."
Meanwhile, Tom Delay, the disgraced former House Majority Leader, is back with a vengeance and a new book. After attacking his own one-time Texas GOP colleague Dick Armey as "drunk with ambition," the former exterminator deployed the language of the Nazi final solution against the Democrats. After comparing liberals to Hitler, he compared his own indictment back in Texas with the persecution and deaths of 6,000,000 Jews in the Holocaust. The only analogy we hear from the Hammer more often is the self-proclaimed comparison of Tom Delay and Jesus Christ.
In Nevada, Delay's one-time colleague and now Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons found himself in an ethical hole and decided to keep digging. Only weeks after surviving a scandal surrounding a rumored sexual assault, Gibbons and his wife are being investigated for possible bribes involving not one but two defense contractors. Email records include such smoking gun lines as "please don't forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn." Gibbons responded by claiming that "I have heard that the Democrats have paid to have these Wall Street Journal articles written." What happens in Vegas, the Angel muses, doesn't necessarily stay in Vegas.
Back in New York, Bernard Kerik, President Bush's aborted Homeland Security pick, is in even more hot water and might yet take Rudy Giuliani and Alberto Gonzales down with him. In March, Kerik rejected a plea deal involving charges of alleged tax fraud, conspiracy to eavesdrop and mortgage fraud. Just two weeks later, new revelations showed that Giuliani and Gonzales continued to support Kerik to run DHS even after the White House learned of his ties to mob-related firms. His legal woes appear to be hurting his consulting business. Like Oliver North, Gordon Liddy and other GOP felons past, the Angel ponders, Kerik can still count on a home at Fox News.
Which brings us to 2008 GOP presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani. September 2001 may have catapulted New York's mayor to national prominence, but April 2007 may keep him from the White House. His protege Bernard Kerik continues to be albatross, with revelations that Giuliani knew early on of his ties to mob-related firms yet continued to push President for Kerik to head Homeland Security. Days later, we learned that Rudy is his third wife's third husband. And in recent days, American discovered that America's Mayor doesn't know much about nuclear proliferation, the Confederate flag or the price of milk. For Rudy, the GOP primaries really will be a drag.
Last and certainly least, former Reagan OMB head and supply-side junky David Stockman is finally paying a price for his past perfidy. As William Grieder famously documented, the arrogant "tax cut and spend" Stockman was the architect of the massive Republican budget deficits we've learned to know and hate. Stockman's comeuppance finally came, with his indictment last month on charges of defrauding investors and banks. Some times the wheels of justice turn slowly, indeed.
For the complete archives of conservatives miscreants punished by the Avenging Angel, visit here.