Rep. LaHood (R-IL): We canned the Dem staffer as payback for releasing the Cunningham report.

Josh is right. The news cycle has inverted and started to feed on itself. Here are two pieces that illustrate the point.

Exhibit A is an AP story headlined “Sex Scandals Dominate Midterm Elections.” (Subhede: “Will election be a referendum on men behaving badly?”). It’s the sort of breezy, pox on both your houses roundup that tries to pass for political analysis. Are sex scandals dominating the midterms, or is Iraq? And are these scandals really about the sex, or about violence and abuse of power?

Rep. Don Sherwood cheated on his wife, sure, but he also allegedly tried to choke his mistress. Rep. Jim Gibbons may have been drinking and flirting with an off-duty cocktail waitress, but there’s a difference of more than just degree between flirting with, or even boinking, a young lovely and pushing her up against the wall of an empty parking garage and threatening her unless she consents, as she alleges.

There’s also a difference, and this obviously can’t be said often enough, between being gay and being a serial seducer of young male pages. The AP story says the only thing missing from the Foley sex scandal is the sex. Huh? Someone needs to go back and re-read the clips.

Exhibit B is in the Style section of the Washington Post today, a piece on how the term “October Surprise” has been wrung of practically any meaning: “Over time the phrase has been bandied about and overused to the point that it now means any startling surprise from any direction that might somehow affect the outcome of an election.” True enough, but reporting about the reporting is a indication of a news cycle that, in the minds of editors and reporters, is peetering out.

The low-hanging fruit of the Foley scandal has been picked, and it’s back to the hard work of reporting–unless you prefer scavenging among the rotting fruit that fell to the ground.

Quote of the week:

“The higher you climb up the tree, the more your ass shows.”

—Richard Armitage, on the media attention that goes with rising up the ranks in Washington

Unlikeliest political prop of the week, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Former U.S. senator Max Cleland is in Montana, campaigning for Democrat Jon Tester, who’s running against GOP incumbent U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns. This in today’s Billings Gazette:

“During his speech, Cleland made light of his own amputations by grabbing Tester’s left hand, which is missing three fingers lost in a meat grinder.

“‘At least he won’t be putting his hand in the till like someone we know,’ Cleland said, referring to Burns’ campaign donations of about $150,000 from Jack Abramoff, his clients and associates.”

A photo of the exchange is here. If the Dems take Congress, that image will bookend the era of Bush mendacity for me, along with the attack ad the GOP ran against the triple-amputee Cleland in the 2002 election, questioning his courage during the run-up to the Iraq War.

Late Friday, the NRCC reported another huge expenditure on congressional campaigns nationwide: almost $8.5 million. That brings the total spent by the NRCC since September 1 to nearly $50 million.

Here are the highlights of yesterday’s buy:

$870,711 against Tammy Duckworth in the IL-6;

$681,919 against Lois Murphy in the PA-6;

$690,504 against Joe Sestak in the PA-7;

$676,781 against Patrick Murphy in the PA-8;

$561,110 against Zack Space in the OH-18;

$470,648 against Baron Hill in the IN-9;

$424,786 against Ken Lucas in the KY-4;

$414,826 against Patricia Madrid in the NM-1;

$351,599 against Patty Wetterling in the MN-6;

$271,000 to try to salvage the FL-16, Mark Foley’s old district;

There are some additional smaller expenditures in some of the races I listed above, but those are major buys by the NRCC yesterday. So much money; so little time.

The National Education Association has jumped into the mid-terms in a big way, making major independent expenditures in three congressional districts.

As TPM’s Election Central first reported a couple of days ago, the NV-3 held by Republican Jon Porter is looking like it’s in play. To aid the effort, the NEA Fund for Children and Public Education has dropped $378,000 into that race.

In the AZ-5, the NEA is getting serious about knocking off Rep. J.D. Hayworth, with a $491,000 push. And in the NM-1, where Patricia Madrid and Heather Wilson are in a tight race, the NEA has put down $200,000.

The point here is not to document every last dime being spent, but to get a sense of when the battle is being joined, who is engaging in the fight, and where the stakes are the highest.

[Ed. Note: I thought it went without saying that the NEA, the teachers union, is siding with the Dems in these races.]

There’s really no way to calculate the monetary cost to the GOP of the recent sex-related scandals involving GOP congressmen, but you get hints of the toll here and there.

I already touched on the $271,000 the NRCC spent yesterday to boost Joe Negron, the sacrificial lamb in the race for Mark Foley’s seat, who doesn’t even get to have his own name on the ballot. That’s money that clearly would have been used elsewhere were it not for the page eruption.

A couple of days ago, the NRCC suddenly plowed $225,000 into the NV-2, an open seat that heretofore had not garnered much attention. Why the sudden interest? Well, that’s Jim Gibbons’ seat, and while Gibbons is running for governor of Nevada, his late night carousing and alleged assault on a cocktail waitress are probably not leaving voters in that district with a warm fuzzy GOP feeling.

A quarter million here and a quarter million there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Republican bogeyman du jour: House Dems will create Department of Peace.

Lieberman taps Bush donor network.

TPM Reader RR on Iraq …

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were in the front seat.

They drove the Iraq car off a cliff.

Then they turned to the Dems in the back seat.

And said the Dems couldn’t complain unless they could come up with a plan of their own.

The tragedy is that there is no rational hope for a plan (any plan) that will work well. When you’ve driven the car off the cliff, your range of options is quite limited. We’re in the hands of gravity at this point.

Pretty close to the mark. I’ve got my own analogy. Monday, after I sign back on.