Always the dollars. Always the fuckin' dollars

* wilkes is apparently broke

* billmon on Foley:

"The lesson to take away, I think, is that our Chamber of People's Deputies isn't really that much different from a '70s mobbed up casino, and not at all different from a brokerage firm at the height of the '90s bull market. Money brings power and power brings the ability to get more money, which brings the ability to get more power.

A couple of days ago I said the Foley scandal was about the power, stupid. But that may also have put the wrong emphasis on it. It's still the economy, stupid -- although not in quite the way Clinton and company meant it.

Always the dollars. Always the fuckin' dollars."

* billmon: "Is there any shit job that James Baker won't do for the Bush family? What the hell have they got on him?"

* via aravosis:

"A nationwide poll of 1,500 registered voters released yesterday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of white evangelicals are inclined to vote for Republican congressional candidates in the midterm elections, a 21-point drop in support among this critical part of the GOP base."

* glenn on foleygate:

"But for so many reasons -- its relative simplicity, its crystal clarity, the involvement of emotionally-charged issues, the salacious sex aspects -- this Foley scandal circumvents that whole dynamic. People are paying attention on their own. They don't need pundits or journalists to tell them what to think about it because they are able to form deeply held opinions on their own. None of the standard obfuscation tactics used for so long by Bush followers are working here. To the contrary, their attempted use of those tactics is making things much worse for them, because people can see that Bush followers are attempting -- through the use of patently dishonest and corrupt tactics -- to excuse the inexcusable. And seeing that, it gives great credence to all of the accusations voiced over the last five years that this is how the Bush movement operates in every area, because people can now see it for themselves.

In that regard, this scandal is like the Cliffs' Notes version of a more complicated treatise on how the Bush movement operates. Every one of their corrupt attributes is vividly on display here
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It is as though Republicans are being punished for all of their serious political sins at once, in one perfectly constructed, humiliating scandal designed to highlight their crimes and exact just retribution for them. The Foley scandal is shining a very bright light on their conduct, not just in this one incident but with regard to how they have been governing the country generally over the last five years. That is why this scandal is so important and it is why Bush followers are so desperate to proclaim the whole thing over with -- even if it means having to jump on a pathetic Matt Drudge item to do it. The one thing they don't want is for a clear, illuminating light to be shined on how they conduct themselves."