That Kerry fella…

…will lead the Scalito filibuster, but with six Democrats apparently going off the rez, it would fall to a principled Republican or two to make it happen. Oh well, nice try.

There's another count underway, though, that should be just as interesting to upper lefties. House "Ethics" Committee Chair Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris, his protégé from the upper right corner of our frontier outpost on the border, have shown up on the vote count for Majority Leader candidate John Boehner.

Now, Boehner has his own set of ethical, ahem, complications, but it's hard not to see their support for the Member from Ohio as anything other than a direct slap at one of their Democratic colleagues from Washington, the Honorable James McDermott, AKA my own personal Congressman.

Boehner is the Newt Gingrich acolyte who's been chasing Jim McDermott through the federal courts for a decade, trying to have McDermott's 1st Amendment rights suspended because they were used to disclose one of the shadier bits of business from the days when Boehner was a faithful soldier in Newt's leadership team. Locals may remember the highlights (if your memory is shaky, you can get the facts here), but the basic gist is simple. Boehner and Newt were busted red-handed in a conspiracy to violate the terms of a deal cut with the House Ethics Committee over some of Gingrich's most egregious activities. A decade of judge shopping has netted Boehner a series of losses and one contested judgement of $60K plus expenses. The whole matter is now back in a Federal District Court which has previously held that McDermott's actions in the contents of an intercepted cell phone conversation were protected under the 1st Amendment.

I'm siding with my own personal Congressman, but however the court case comes down, there's no argument about the basic facts. Gingrich assembled a team and developed a strategy that was in direct contradiction to his agreement with the Ethics Committee, and Boehner was a member of the team and an agent of the strategy.

There's a lot of handwringing about who should be hauled before the Ethics Committee and why, and some knocks on the House D's for not being more involved in restoring the Committee to regular operation. All that seems pretty meaningless, though, in view of Hastings apparent belief that deliberately undermining the work of the Committee isn't a matter for concern, let alone censure, but rather a qualification for Majority Leader.

What was it that Kerry fella said?

Oh, yeah.

"The most crooked, lying bunch I've ever seen."

Right again, Senator.