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I've been bashing David Brooks for what feels like years for his transformation into a Bush apologist and Republican shill, so its only fitting that I give him some props for his latest effort in the NYTimes. For those of you who don't subscribe to the idiotic TimesSelect feature, here's a solid excerpt, with commentary of course, so that you don't miss out:

I don't know what's more pathetic, Jack Abramoff's sleaze or Republican paralysis in the face of it. Abramoff walks out of a D.C. courthouse in his pseudo-Hasidic homburg, and all that leading Republicans can do is promise to return his money and remind everyone that some Democrats are involved in the scandal, too. That's a great G.O.P. talking point: some Democrats are so sleazy, they get involved with the likes of us.

Does Brooks come out swinging or what!?! Its nice to finally see someone on the right thinking sensibly about this. Abramoff is a Republican's Republican, a figure literally at the heart of Tom DeLay's K-Street Project. Screaming "the Dems did it too!" just won't cut it here, both because a) they didn't, and b) the entire premise of the K-Street Project was to shut Democrats out of the money delivered by big business. Of course Brooks only grudginly acknowledges point a, but nevertheless.... we continue:

If Republicans want to emerge from this affair with their self-respect or electoral prospects intact, they need to get in front of it with a comprehensive reform offensive. First, they need to hold new leadership elections. As Newt Gingrich and Vin Weber told me yesterday, Tom DeLay needs to take care of his own legal problems and give up the dream of returning as majority leader. But Republicans need to do more than bump DeLay. They need to put the entire leadership team up for a re-vote. That's because the real problem wasn't DeLay, it was DeLayism, the whole culture that merged K Street with the Hill, and held that raising money is the most important way to contribute to the team. New leadership elections would, at least, make the current leaders re-earn their slots with new platforms. At best, they would allow the party to reinvigorate itself under new management. A party led by young talents like Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence and Mark Kirk would be taken seriously as a party of reform.

I'm with him on this but only to a point. New leadership would be an important symbolic action, but without dismantling and repudiating the K-Street Project, something that the Republican Party would never do, it won't mean much. That will only happen one of two ways: massive reform, and don't hold your breath waiting for that, or a transfer of power from one party to the next.

Second, the Republicans need to get a grip on earmarks. Earmarks are the provisions that single members can stick into gigantic bills to steer spending toward favored projects. They're an invitation to corruption. If individual members of Congress can control $100 million federal contracts or billion-dollar pork barrel projects, then of course companies are going to find ways to funnel graft to those members. To prove they're serious about special-interest spending, Republicans could declare a one-year earmark moratorium until they get a handle on this problem. Or they could promote legislation mandating that earmarks eat up only 1 percent of any spending bill's total cost.

Again, great idea. But does he honestly believe that his party will do this? Earmarks are central to their entire dirty money machine, and Republican lawmakers have abused the process in ways unimaginable just a decade or two ago. This wasn't an accident; it was by design.

Third, Republicans need to steal David Obey and Barney Frank's lobbying-reform ideas. For some insane reason, having to do with their own special interests, Democrats have been slow to trumpet the ideas coming from their own party. Republicans have a chance to hijack them before the country notices. Specifically, there should be a ban on lobbyist-paid travel. (Members should be allowed to take spouses on publicly financed travel because it is important that members get out and see the world.) Former members should not be allowed to lobby on the House floor. All lobbyist contacts with government officials should be posted on the Internet. Gingrich intriguingly suggests abolishing all fund-raising in the Washington metro area. Make the lobbyists go to the districts if they want to attend $1,000 cocktail parties.

So much for the "Democrats have no new ideas" talking point. And that's a pretty amazing admission when you think about it. Republicans have no ideas of their own on this, so they should get out front and steal the good ideas held by the Dems. Which begs the questions - why haven't the Democrats made this their #1 talking point? I'll be sick to my stomach if they don't ride this issue all the way into the majority this fall.

Fourth, enforce House rules. There's bound to be corruption when spending provisions can be slipped into legislation in the dead of night, outside the normal oversight procedures. There's bound to be corruption when members are forced to vote on sprawling bills nobody has a chance to inspect. Instead, all legislation should be posted online for 72 hours before the vote, so the staff and bloggers can nitpick and expose.

Again, bending and breaking the rules has been central to the way the Republican Party has run Congress. They are well aware that they can't win the debate on the merits, so they have resorted to all sorts of cheap tricks to push their agenda forward. Lies are how they govern. Its nice to see Brooks acknowledging this, if only in a very oblique way.

Fifth, rebuild the ethics committees. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute proposes a bifurcated process. The investigations should be conducted by a commission of former members and former staffers. That way, current members are not investigating one another. Then the committees can vote on the commission recommendations.

Now this is an interesting idea. Anyone out there know anything more about this?

Sixth, readopt the pay-as-you-go budget rules. As long as a $2.6 trillion a year government is expanding into more areas of national life, businesses will have an incentive to invest in lobbyists. The 1990 pay-as-you-go rules, which forced Congress to offset new expenditures with spending restraint, not only imposed fiscal discipline but also forced pork projects to compete for limited resources.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Bush himself blast Kerry for calling for "paygo" during the election? And didn't his dad get hammered for going back on his "read my lips" pledge a decade ago? The only thing thats going to restore fiscal discipline to DC is a Democratic president. Sorry Brooksie, but its a brave new world on this one....

Finally, today -- before noon -- fire Bob Ney as chairman of the House Administration Committee. For God's sake, Republicans, show a little moral revulsion.

Don't hold your breath on this one. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and there are plenty of those in today's Republican-led Congress.

Back in the dim recesses of my mind, I remember a party that thought of itself as a reform, or even a revolutionary, movement. That party used to be known as the Republican Party. I wonder if it still exists.

He wonders? Good god. Does he read his own material? That party died years ago. Assuming that is that it ever existed.

UPDATE: If Brooks has seen this, he must be very VERY disappointed. Frist and Santorum leading the charge on reform? The jokes just write themselves....

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