I almost can’t think about politics these days, let alone write about it, because it’s so awful I can’t stand it. I realize this is why the situation continues to deteriorate: people like me can’t work up the energy necessary to, you know, do something about it. The only thing I’ve done lately is to call up Sen. Feinstein’s office and say, politely, to the intern answering the phone, “What the fuck was Feinstein thinking saying there would be no Alito filibuster? Filibuster him, damn you.” Okay, I used little to no profanity. But I was thinking it.

Anyhow, today’s bit of insanity, which displays just how far down the rabbit hole we are right now, comes from Rep. Bob Ney, of Ohio (via Atrios):

Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett said Thursday that he’d ask Rep. Bob Ney to resign from Congress if he were indicted on felony charges.

Bennett stressed that Ney, R-Heath, has not been charged with any crime and that the party backs him for re-election.

…Asked if Ney planned to step down if Bennett urged him to do so, Ney said: “I would say if he asked me to step down that he’d better look in the mirror because glass houses break easily.”

An elected Congressional Representative isn’t claiming innocence; he’s saying, “Yeah, I’m guilty, and if I go down, I’m taking people with me.”

And, you know, this isn’t particularly big news.

Of course, in a time when the President had not only admitted publicly to high crimes and misdemeanors but has said he’ll do it again and again, and Congress isn’t really doing much to hold up their end of the Constitutional bargain… I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.

Roger Ailes (the good one) has a wonderful end of the year news quiz, reminding us of so many of the wonderful low-lights of the past year. Check it out. He even has a 2006 in Preview section for smarty-pants who think they know it all.

Via Firedoglake, Media Matters has a wonderful bit up about our wonderfully unbiased press:

In a November 13 column, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell addressed reader requests for the Post to conduct its own polls to measure public support for impeachment:

First, there was a swarm to me and to Post Polling Editor Richard Morin asking that The Post do a poll on whether President Bush should be impeached. Whoa. Since we get mail all the time saying that we are biased against Bush or are in his back pocket, why would The Post want to do that? The question many demanded that The Post ask is biased and would produce a misleading result, Morin said; he added that the campaign was started by Democrats.com.

But Howell’s defense doesn’t ring true. Her reference to complaints that the Post is “biased against Bush or are in his back pocket” is simply an irrelevant dodge; it has nothing to do with the question. It’s simply the same tired and lazy strategy that news organizations often fall back on in the face of criticism: saying, essentially: hey, both sides complain, so we must be doing everything right.

Further, Howell didn’t explain how “the question many demanded the Post ask is biased,” she just asserted it (attributing the assertion to Morin). But how would it be biased? Surely it must be possible to design a poll question to measure the public’s support for impeachment that isn’t “biased.” After all, the Post did it repeatedly when there was a Democratic president.

For example, A January 1998 Post poll conducted just days after the first revelations of Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinsky asked the following questions:

“If this affair did happen and if Clinton did not resign, is this something for which Clinton should be impeached, or not?”

“There are also allegations that Clinton himself lied by testifying under oath that he did not have an affair with the woman. If Clinton lied in this way, would you want him to remain in office as president, or would you want him to resign the presidency?”

“If Clinton lied by testifying under oath that he did not have an affair with the woman, and he did not resign, is this something for which Clinton should be impeached, or not?”

Morin was the Post’s polling director at the time, and he wrote the January 26, 1998, article reporting the poll results.

By the way, if you’re not reaading the incredibly valuable Firedoglake (the only blog I check more often than my RSS feed allows), you are missing out. It is the sine qua non for explaining all things Fitzmas — seriously, the ins and outs of what Judy and Scooter and Karl and Woody have been up to have been parsed and translated for the lay reader in a way that’s utterly beautiful… and it takes the mainstream media a couple of days or even weeks to crib from them and put sort-of explanations in the papers.