Trust Laundering

If there's any phrase I wish I could insert into the national political consciousness, it would be trust laundering.

It's the perfect way to tie all of the Republicans together into one neat package, so we can toss them overboard all at once. The Foley cover-up scandal is the perfect mimetic carrier for this.

This provides a simple rhetorical hook to allow us to talk to moderate Republicans and unaffiliated people who have voted Republican in the past:

"No matter how decent or moderate or reasonable your local Republican Representative or Senator is,", we can say, "they still vote in the Republican caucus, and elect as their leaders people like Dennis Hastert and John Boehner, who have been covering for a sexual predator. They take your trust, and then, just like money laundering, they hand it up to their leadership, who abuses it."

The trust laundering goes farther, of course: the Republicans in Congress further launder this trust to support (some might say lie down for, or even bend over for) a President whose handling of the country a large majority of the population disapproves of.

The list of Bush's faults isn't worth getting into here (and it's probably preaching to the choir), but if you know someone who disapproves of Bush's handling of the country, but still feels it reasonable to vote for a Republican Representative or Senator because that Republican is a decent person, ask them "would a decent person support someone who covers for sexual predators?"