On Boehner and the end of McCain v. Obama.

First off, much to the chagrin of right-wing pundits everywhere who care nothing about lobbying reform, but will go to great lengths to discredit a Democrat, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Illinois) renewed their committment to work together on reforming the rules under which lobbyists operate and joked about their exchange of letters in front of the Rules Committee today.

Second, newly elected House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) rents his DC apartment from a lobbyist who's had important conflicts of interest relating to Boehner's chairmanship of the Education and the Workforce Committee.

I thought the election of Rep. Boehner was supposed to be the Republicans' internal outcry over DeLay style ethics issues. That, it seems, is just smoke and mirrors.

Boehner, who says that he keeps up his constant tan by playing lots of golf (I wonder how much of it is paid for by lobbyists...), is really just a continuation of the status quo. It seems that most Congressional Republicans aren't yet ready to abandon their culture of corruption and jump on the ethics bandwagon.

With every passing day, it seems more and more likely that at least one house is going to have a new majority party after November is all said and done. Thank God. If the party in power continues to undermine the ethical requirements of public service, then the integrity of our democratic ideals truly depend on its removal from control.