"Is This A Problem Yet?"

How about a Medal Of Honour for Josh Marshall when all this nasty Bush Co. business blows over? After all his fine work yesterday, Marshall today is all over the Abramoff/DeLay story (so see for yourself).

Main points:

- House GOP Majority Leader Tom De Lay has been indicted.

- Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) was picked as his replacement. But then Dreier was pushed aside by Majority Whip Roy Blunt, which suggests De Lay is dead in the water (Dreier would basically have been a place-holder till De Lay got back: Blunt will own the job for keeps).

- Seven other Texas congressmen are still sitting in Congress because of what the Travis County grand jury calls a criminal conspiracy.

Not to mention:

- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is the target of an increasingly serious probe of potential insider trading.

- Rumors of October Rove indictment in the Plame case.

- White House procurement officer David Safavian was arrested last week on charges of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government.

- Abramoff, once one of Washington's top lobbyists, is being investigated for his lobbying activities on behalf of Indian tribes and his role in paying for overseas trips for DeLay.

And all this in the wake of the Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown scandal. As Marshall asks, "Is this a problem yet?"

UPDATE: De Lay plays the partisan politics escape card, saying prosecutor Ronnie Earle is a Democrat pursuing an anti-GOP agenda. Even Roy Blunt is still backing him: "Unfortunately, Tom DeLay's effectiveness as Majority Leader is the best explanation for what happened in Texas today." But Earle has previously prosecuted three times more Democrats than Republicans, including some of the biggest Democratic names in Texas. To quote Terry M. Neal in the WaPo today:

It is entirely possible both that your enemies are out to get you and that you did exactly what you are being accused of doing. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

Ask Bill Clinton.