The Most Corrupt Presidency Ever!

It’s still just the embryonic Barack Obama administration, of course, but the light-speed downfall of Bill Richardson, Obama’s nominee for Commerce Dept. secretary, has brought back a conservative meme that had faded after Obama escaped blame in Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s scandals.

I should be clear: This is a conservative movement meme, not something the Republican Party takes seriously. I’d noticed the same thing that the *Wall Street Journal *reports about Richardson and his (now-moot) Senate confirmation process: Republicans didn’t really care about his scandal, and didn’t think it would derail him. They’re training their guns on Eric Holder and (to a lesser extent) the Clintons.

“Obama will have a botched nominee after all,” tweeted Patrick Ruffini, the NextRight co-founder and former Bush-Cheney ’04 webmaster. “Thought he wouldn’t.”

The meme is catching on in the blogs. “Thus far, the Obama transition looks pretty shaky,” blogged Ed Morrissey of HotAir on Sunday. “One has to wonder what kind of vetting the Obama transition team has done with the marquee selections, and how badly they’ll bungle the rest.” Brent Baker, a blogger for the Media Research Center, fretted that the mainstream political press was covering for Obama by calling Richardson a “distraction.”

John Hinderaker of Powerline cut a little bit closer to the meme. “It is safe to say,” he blogged, “that the Democrats’ image as the ‘culture of corruption’ party continues to grow.” That’s what The Washington Times‘s Donald Lambro started arguing three whole weeks in a column about the “taint of scandal” defining the party. Obama, conservative bloggers like to point out, is the “first president-elect to meet with federal investigators.” He was cooperating with them to nail a Democratic governor, sure, but still…well…scandal!