Ham Sandwich Republicans, Mama Cass Dems

With today's indictment of former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, we now have an opportunity to clean up our labels for conservatives. Who besides Andrew Sullivan can keep up with small government conservatives, fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, neo-conservatives, compassionate conservatives, racist conservatives, sexist conservatives, homophobic conservatives, crusty conservatives, neanderthals, and (my favorite) rock-rib conservatives anyway. But now that a who's who of conservatives are being indicted, we have the opportunity to view all conservatives as "ham sandwich conservatives." Republicans complain that prosecutors can get indictments for ham sandwiches if they want, but it seems that all the ham sandwiches being indicted these days are conservative Republicans.

Of course, there's worse things than being a "ham sandwich" conservative in Washington--a "Mama Cass" Democrats for example. Despite the mushrooming scandals and failures of the Republicans, the Democrats maintain their extended state of paralysis. They must do "paralysis" work outs. Afraid of the Bush administration, afraid of the conservative attack machine, afraid of the mainstream media, afraid of their own anti-war popular constituencies, afraid of appearing dis-united, afraid of appearing overly partisan, afraid of defining their own agenda, the Democratic leadership in Washington gives political cowardice a bad name. In fact, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and their minions are so timid that they're probably afraid of eating ham sandwiches. Look what happened to Mama Cass!