Chris Wallace seems to have found his rhythm at Fox News Sunday. He's asking tough and probing questions of people on both sides of the aisle and refusing to let people slide on by with obfuscations and detours. I was particularly interested to watch this week as Howard Dean agreed to appear--the first time ever I believe. It may be awhile until he comes back.

Dean seemed well-prepared, leaving his crazy Howard persona at home and refining his "Democrats are strong on defense" rhetoric, however when Dean stepped into the guilt-by-association nonsense about the grip-and-grin pictures of Bush with Abramoff, Wallace began jigging his lure.

You and other top Democrats are going after what you call a Republican "culture of corruption" but you deny any Democrats are involved.

Let looks at some exchanges on that:

Dean on: Lobbying Scandal

CNN: "But through various Abramhoff-related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff."

Dean: "That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either."

-CNN Late Edition, January 8

Governor, its certain true that Republicans got twice as much money from Abramoff-related contributions than Democrats did, but Democrats are clean in this area either?

Dean replied, " Yeah they are pretty clean Chris, and I'll tell you why. First of all, every dime of Jack Abramoff's money went to Republicans. Not one dime went to and Democrat or Democrat organization--his personal money. Secondly, he did direct contributions to mostly Republicans, but a few Democrats. But the Democrats--(a) didn't know that he directed his clients to give them money and (b) they never produced anything for Abramoff...

Wallace now starts reeling him in, flat out contradicting the statement Dean had made by pointing out that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte but received large amounts directly from Abramoff ($298,980 and $243,500 respectively)

At this point, Dean is stuttering and emphasizing that NO DEMOCRAT DELIVERED ANYTHING FOR JACK ABRAMOFF.

... netted and flopping around on the deck.

Wallace: "But if we find, we have to wrap this up, there were some Democrats who wrote some letters on behalf of Indian tribes that Abramoff represented--then what do you say sir?

Dean: That's a big problem, and those Democrats are in trouble and they should be in trouble, and our party, if the American people will put us back in power in '06, we will have on the President's desk, things that outlaw all those kinds of behaviors. Right now its a Republican scandal. Maybe they will find that some Democrats did some things wrong to. That hasn't been the case yet.

Wallace then engages in a cordial farewell, come back soon exigence, but after Howard has vacated the studio and during the panel discussion, Wallace interrupts a discussion on Kerry's bid for a filibuster to make an announcement.

"For those of you who were watching earlier on when we were talking with Governor Dean, he said that no Democrats ever did anything in response to the money that they got from Abramoff or Abramoff clients like the Indian tribes, and if they did, they were in trouble. Well the Washington Post reported in November that Senator Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, wrote a letter to the Interior Secretary back in March 5th, 2002, opposing a casino, that one of those Indian tribes opposed. On March 6th the next day, Abramoff tribal client wrote a $5,000 check to Mr. Reid's Searchlight Leadership Fund. Mr. Reid's spokesman said there was absolutely no connection between the letter and the fund-raising, but its worth noting Mr. Reid;s Abramoff-related total was $66,000 between 2001 and 2004. He says he's not returning any of the money because he has done nothing wrong."

Clubbed and gutted.

I think Howard Dean just made this a Crat scandal. He came on the program making bold assertions and Wallace made him eat his own words. He went from Democrats are totally innocent in this, to "maybe some Democrats did some bad things..."

Harry is going to have lot's of 'splaining' to do and insistence that he hasn't done anything wrong just won't do the trick. Tom Delay in all likelyhood had done nothing wrong either, Bob Ney is innocent until proven guilty, but in both cases the court of public opinion decides you are guilty until proven innocent.

The fact that Delay and Ney have stepped aside and Reid hasn't makes a strong case that Republicans have paradoxically seized the high ground on the corruption scandal even while Democrats are out of power--D'oh!

When you work at home, a lot of unwanted issues like debt or previous loans sprout up. Take care of the pressing issues first. Then deal with the exigent mortgages and get rid of all the cheap insurance deals you already have.