A plague of scandals - Abramoff will blow lid off crony corruption

My friend Kevin told me a few weeks ago to keep an eye on the Abramoff investigation. He thinks it's going to blow the Beltway wide open before it's over. I think his words were something like "scandal of momumental proportion - dwarfing all others." Judging from the daily dribble of revelations coming out of these hearings, I would have to agree with him. It appears there will be plenty of indictments to go around before this story line is played out.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chair of the Justice Department's public corruption task force called the saga "a complex and tangled web . . . a story alarming in its depth and breadth of potential wrongdoing. It is breathtaking in its reach."

My favorite witness of the day - Italia Federici, (sounds like she should be a car, or a bimbo on a "reality show" a la Paris Hilton), said to be the "go-between from Abramoff to J. Steven Griles," the Interior Department's recently departed second in command . I guess I shouldn't call her a witness since she's running from the US Marshalls and has so far eluded the summons and refused to testify. In the interim, Italia, who used to be a mere campaign aide in Interior Secretary Norton's Colorado office has been upgraded to the presidency of a conservative environmental group Norton founded with anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist. Grover's name seems to be coming up with rather alarming frequency. Maybe he'll drown in that bathtub, along with the government he intends to shrink.

It's just beginning, but you're definitely going to need a scorecard to keep track of this scandal.