-- Alaska Senator Ted Stevens -- he of the Bridge to Nowhere and "the Internet is a series of tubes" fame -- had his house raided by agents of the FBI and the IRS yesterday.
Lazy Fred Thompson hit less than two-thirds of his fundraising goal for the month of June, which further disillusions Republican prospects for retaining the White House in 2008:
But many Republicans have turned queasy as Thompson has ousted part of his original brain trust and repeatedly delayed his official announcement, which is now planned for shortly after Labor Day, in the first two weeks of September.
Some are already saying a prospective Thompson run is a flop. “I just don’t see it anymore,” said a key Republican who had been extremely enthusiastic about a Thompson candidacy. "That number is really underwhelming. There were indications it could be double that. They've been saying that people were waiting for Fred, and the money was going to pour in. He looks like he's already losing momentum."
-- And an impeachment resolution was introduced yesterday in the House of Representatives.
All that and we still await a flash from Louisiana Senator Diaper Vitter, who last week suggested to his colleagues that they should "rebrand" the Republican party as fiscal conservatives. (This must be out of concern for the lost libertarian faction.)
There's really no schadenfruede in any of this news, frankly. Illness, legal woes, another politician's campaign and career collapsing ...
Good luck the rest of this week, Republicans. Maybe things will get better, though with Talmadge Heflin now at the helm in Texas, I wouldn't count on it.
