Predictably, Harry Reid was asked about his receipt of $66,000.00 in donations from Abramoff clients. In at least one case, Reid wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Interior supporting a tribes position and then receiving a $5,000.00 check from that tribe the next day. (Denver Post, 11/21/2005)

Many lawmakers followed up the donation with letters urging Interior Secretary Gale Norton to reject a casino that would have been harmful to Abramoff's clients.

Typically, the lawmakers said the timing of donations was a coincidence and that they wrote letters because they opposed the expansion of tribal gambling. A spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who received more than $100,000 in donations from 2001 to 2004, told AP, "We've always opposed these things, in our back yard, in our state, someplace else."

Sen. Harry Reid's office has a similar explanation. Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., sent a letter to Norton and Reid received a donation a day later.

Howard Dean, on FNS yesterday, stated that any Democrat who "did anything" of this sort was "in trouble".

There is an odor around Harry Reid that just can't be dispelled by weak statements that he has done "nothing wrong" and insistence that the Abramoff affair is a "Republican scandal"

While Democrats claim to be morally superior to the Republicans on this issue, its worth noting that Bob Ney resigned with very little resistance when his involvement with Abramoff suggest an "appearance of evil" Tom Delay, realizing that his own situation was a distraction, withdrew from reclaiming his leadership in spite of considerable support from his colleagues.

This is called "doing the right thing."

If Reid were serious about irreprochable Democrat ethics, he would also resign and ask for an investigation of his activities for good measure. As it is, Reid and the Democrats simply have no standing to claim moral superiority.

UPDATE: A reader who declines to be named, has written his Democrat congressman the following letter

Congressman Matheson:

In the wake of the Abramoff indictment, the public has become concerned about issues of corruption in Washington. While politically, the Democrats have sought to label this a "Republican problem", I find myself increasingly dissatisfied with Senator Harry Reid's explanation of his own actions in writing letters on behalf of Abramoff clients and receiving an apparently quid pro quo donation the next day.

While Tom Delay has withdrawn from reclaiming the House leadership and Bob Ney has resigned from his chairmanship, Reid stubbornly engages in a litany that he has done nothing wrong and that this is a Republican scandal, thus ceding the moral high ground.

Will you support the standard that DNC Chairman Howard Dean espoused on Fox News Sunday (1/29/2006)that any Democrat who engaged in quid pro quo activities for donations should find themselves "in trouble"?

Will you call for Senator Reid to step down--temporarily or otherwise?

That seems like a good idea. If Democrats are serious about cleaning up Washington, then an election year is no better time to get them on record.