Just thought of this --

Nancy Pelosi has nothing to lose by throwing Charles Rangel under the bus.

In an ordinary election year, I suppose she would be afraid of losing support from the Black community. This might be mitigated/stopped by naming another qualified Black to chair the committee. However, with Barack Obama on top of the ticket, the likelihood of flagging Black interest is nearly nil.

Having done away with the corruption in her ranks, she can then point to the Republicans, whose senior Senator (Ted Stevens) is currently awaiting trial.

Actually, Stevens/Rangel is more of a litmus test -- most Republicans are likely to moan about Rangel while ignoring Stevens, while most Democrats will do the opposite. I still think the Democrats deserve a couple of years at the wheel, but too many Rangels will eventually cause me to peel away.

Keith Fimian, the GOP Congressional candidate in my district, seems to be a standard-issue conservative. He's probably too conservative for VA-11, which contains areas of Mid-Fairfax that have trended Democratic over the past 10 years and areas of Prince William that are pretty Republican. But, he's done nothing to make him irrevocably lose my vote the way George Allen did with 'macaca' and 'noose in my office.' I'd vote for Fimian if I thought the Democrats needed to be taken down a peg.

Frankly, since Stevens is actually on trial, Stevens is going to embarrass his party more, unless Rangel does a perp walk or something entirely new (and embarrassing) is discovered. The branch of the DOJ that is trying Stevens has a 90% conviction rate, and the trial is in Washington, as opposed to Alaska (where Stevens might get acquitted or have a hung jury because he's Ted Stevens.) I suspect the best Stevens can hope for in the absence of prosecution malfeasance is to get a lone holdout to hang the jury until after the election.

On the other hand, the media will be talking for the next two weeks about Ted Stevens and the various things he's done. That is, if it's not talking about the economy or about Troopergate. I suspect Stevensgate is going to be story #2-#5 for most of the next few weeks, and a conviction will be story #1 for a couple of days.

Troopergate, I think, is becoming a classic study in 'it's the coverup, stupid.' The more they stonewall, the more non-Republicans are going to think, 'Gee, what's going on here?' Given what we know, the story is moderately damaging to McCain/Palin at worst, and the stonewalling merely delays a one-shot moderate amount of pain while administering minor amounts of pain nearly constantly. Unless, of course, there's something we don't know about.

She could've apologized for misuse of her power while she was just a finalist in Vice-Presidential Idol, while stressing the sins (real and imagined) of her brother-in-law, who is a piece of work. If she had done this in July, no non-Democrat would be caring at this point. But now that she's the nominee, every move she makes automatically becomes one of the top 4-5 stories of the day.

She also lost the chance to put neutral or positive stories about her in the top 4-5 stories because she is shielded from the media -- sure she'd have made some gaffes, but better early on than on October 2 while Joe Biden's on stage with her.

I think Biden will win a unanimous decision in the debate, but Palin's performance will not be so embarrassing as to cause McCain to hemorrhage support. At least I think this is how it'll be. Biden's not gaffe-proof himself but Palin's answers to questions about Troopergate will be very revealing.

I still think Rapekitgate is far more potentially damaging, due to its built-in soundbite friendliness and its more visceral nature. I suspect the discovery of a Wasilla PD rape kit receipt will sink McCain/Palin for good. If what the Huffington Post is reporting is true (that the Wasilla PD under Palin started a policy of charging for rape kits, as opposed to merely continuing a Stone Age-vintage policy) and it can be proven, we're looking at historic levels of fail for McCain.