corrente

First rule of Rethuglican politics: You can use your own money to get yourself started in the stealing-and-preaching business, but once the dough starts to roll in from the suckers you must promptly pay yourself back. Ex-Dr., now Sen Frist (R-PiousFraudulency) is, I fervently hope, about to get his stethoscope in a wringer:

(via Atlanta Journal-Constitution, sorry, registration, but other Knight-Ridder places will no doubt have it shortly. Hey, maybe even a Gannett rag like the Nashville Tennessean will pick it up someday? (pause to guffaw, snicker, snort, etc.):

Hundreds of thousands of dollars Frist's supporters had given him to run for the Senate were dwindling at a rapid rate. Much of that money was lost in a stock market investment that experts say was out of line with the way candidates traditionally invest campaign funds. Frist's campaign also took on more than $1 million in debt so that it could repay Frist for interest-free loans he made to his campaign six years earlier.

And then, in a decision experts say violated federal campaign regulations, Frist filed reports with the Federal Elections Commission that made it difficult for his contributors and political foes to determine just how bad off his campaign finances were.

Now the most likely scenario is that Frist himself (or one of his "people": I like to call them Fristians myself) arranged to leak this to the Urinal-Constipation. That way they can pay the usual little wrist-slapping fine and afterwards can dismiss all queries as "old news" which "Tennesseans didn't care about then" (tragically probably true) "and the American people don't care about now." I wonder if Lil' Scotty McLiar's been signed up as campaign press pimp in chief yet?