Does the Right Know Jack?

This is a real test for conservative commentators.

The Jack Abramoff guilty plea this week puts the crooked lobbyist smack in the center of what could balloon into the biggest congressional scandal in decades. Abramoff happens to be a Bush Pioneer, a DeLay pal, and generally someone who was deeply embedded in the Republican power structure.

What's more, Abramoff is a symbol of a capital awash in tainted cash and legislative favors, a system that turns on golfing trips to Scotland and congressionally earmarked bridges to nowhere -- in short, a very fat target for editorial disapproval.

But even though Abramoff steered some client cash to Democrats, this is, for the moment, a largely Republican scandal. So do folks on the right unload on Jack and his enablers, or stick to the defensive party talking points?

I'm sure it's just a coincidence that, according to Nexis at least, Fox's Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly uttered not a word about Abramoff this week. And if this was a convicted lobbyist who funneled big bucks to Hillary Clinton, they'd be just as bored by the story.

Update: I stand corrected, O'Reilly hit the topic Wednesday (transcript still not available) and Hannity talked about Abramoff last night. He said he wouldn't defend corrupt Republican politicians -- unlike the Dems who he said kept defending the indefensible Bill Clinton! I knew there was a Clinton angle in there somewhere.

There are, however, a number of conservative prognosticators who have stepped up to the plate, starting with the NYT's David Brooks:

"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.

"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, 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 . . .