So, the Republicans are having a little ethics trouble and they chose to replace Tom Delay with John Boehner. Are you telling me there are no untainted Republican congressmen? There's nobody better than this guy to cleanse the Republican Party? With just a cursory look at the guy we see that John Boehner handed out checks from the tobacco industry to members on the House floor at a time when lawmakers were considering eliminating a tobacco subsidy, took $65,000 from Sallie Mae while writing student loan legislation and Republican representative Chris Shays says, "The problem John faces is that he's so close to K Street; that's the challenge he's got".

Does anyone remember the "Contract with America"? Boehner couldn't have forgotten already! He championed the darn thing!

Here are some excerpts from a document whose purpose is "to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives":

1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses.

* FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress;
* SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste, fraud or abuse;
* FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
* SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the public;
* EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.

Seriously folks, if you have a chance read over the Contract with America. There's some good stuff in there. Heck, the Democrats could take about half of it verbatim and use it as a reform platform. Or maybe the Republicans could finally get around to doing what they said they'd do a decade ago?