Westover on Mark Ritchie’s magical floating mailing lists:

Despite the hullabaloo raised by us on the conservative side, there’s little important to say about the Ritchie affair. He either “made a mistake,” showed a “lack of judgment” or blatantly made use of government property for campaign purposes. In any case, he screwed up and then failed the character test of admitting he screwed up. Ok, we have a weak-willed politician in office and dog bites man. The only persons significantly hurt by Ritchie’s actions are Ritchie and those who really believed in and trusted him. Slap his wrist, but let’s not waste cycles on the political equivalent of a “john” sweep.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that when we had a real scandal with real consequences to deal with, we threw in the towel. Former senate majority leader Dean Johnson, under oath, told one story to the Senate Ethics Committee about Defense of Marriage Act conversations with Supreme Court justices and another to the Judicial Review Board denying such conversations took place. He then revised that account after his testimony, saying there were conversations and he had witnesses. In other words, we still don’t know whether Johnson or the Supreme Court Justices are telling the truth.

Not sure whether I agree with Westover that this is is just a matter of trust (as if that’s a trifling thing with the administrator of the state’s elections), but he’s right; politics ain’t beanbag, but the GOP did wind up playing croquet with Johnson.