Here we go again....

=Sigh=

That didn't take long.

Suddenly it's December 1992 once again -- a newly-elected Democratic President, a scandal involving corrupt home-state politics, and a right wing which was already bound and determined to have the election declared null and void, and is now poised to let us enjoy the Clinton years once again -- only instead of manufacturing charges during a time of peace and prosperity, we have two botched wars and an economy on the verge of a second Great Depression.

I'm not defending Rod Blagojevic -- far from it. We liberal bloggers don't do that. We don't applaud giving our convicted felons standing ovations on the floor of the Senate or demand pardons for them. We hang them out to dry as they well deserve. Even as I write, Rachel Maddow is on as big a tear about Roddy B. as she was about Scooter Libby.

But even though it seems that Blagojevic absolutely hates Barack Obama, watch for a four to eight year witch hunt in which Republicans will demand a special prosecutor to "examine" Obama's relationship with Blagojevic -- despite the fact that Patrick Fitzgerald, a straight arrow who used to be persona non grata with Republicans but all of a sudden they think he's an OK guy, made clear that there is zero connection between this case and the President-elect.

But since when did reality have anything to do with it. The right wing smells blood in the water, and if it means that another president has to spend his term defending himself against scurrilous allegations through guilt-by-association instead of oh, say, working to keep us from eddying down into total global economic collapse, or keeping the recent prediction that there will be a biological or nuclear weapon deployed in the next five years from becoming a reality, well, what is the future of the world when compared with made-up associations and shadowy allegations?

If Obama is involved with any of Blagojevic's schemes (and I don't think he's that dumb), we will find out soon enough. But since when did the current and pressing needs of the nation ever take priority over Republican lust for power?

Let the prosecution proceed. Let Blagojevic rot in prison. Clean up the mess in Illinois. But can we please not put a new administration on hold while Republicans attempt to regain power by any means necessary?

Meanwhile, I'm going to sit here in New Jersey and chuckle over the fact that there's a state even more corrupt than the one I live in. Well, that one and Alaska.

UPDATE: Digby has more on how happy the media seem to be that they can live the 1990's all over again. So does Bob Cesca.