Let me re-phrase your questions, in answer:

Should the Republicans be focusing on such pursuits while they are in session? Should Presidents have such immunity? Do you think that Presidents such as Clinton should be held to a higher standard?

Should the Democrats be focusing on such pursuits while they are in session? Should Presidents have such immunity? Do you think that Presidents such as Nixon should be held to a higher standard?

Having been a committee treasurer several times I know how easy it is to make really big but innocent mistakes in contribution and expenditure (C&E) reports. Typically, PACs don't hire trained bookkeepers for this role - they utilize volunteers, or people with secretarial or political experience or interest. Sometimes they use family members, and sometimes they do the job themselves. So it should not be a surprise when mistakes like that happen. I wouldn't jump to conclusions about Dan Doyle just yet. Getting a $3800 fine is easier than you might think, and if the public tends to assume that getting a fine automatically means the candidate behaved dishonestly, then pressure builds on the PAC treasurer to try to hide, rather than fix, accounting errors that could result in fines and the subsequent bad PR.

That said, in an ideal world legislators should not have legal immunity during sessions, but I understand why they do. Political opponents can use the legal system to engage in personal attacks - warranted or not - that undermine the person's political effectiveness. Remember what the right wing did to Bill Clinton? Legal troubles were created by his opponents to mute the effectiveness of his administration. The same thing happens in smaller scale politics, whether it's in small towns or state legislatures. I hope that's not what is happening here.

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Resolution in this should sharpen into focus as more points of detail enter the picture, along the way, but my early impression relates to (me) proposing a ban on broadcast political advertising.

In this case, Doyle would never have been caught, or never have slipped up, whichever, if Comcast had been barred from Doyle's payables ledger to begin with.

There is a subtlety in this that is lost on most politicos who swear so surely that their better interest is in being able to buy broadcast ads and airtime. As a rule, considering the ilk of politicians and the ilk of broadcasters, the broadcasters are likely to eat the politicians alive. That is, bilk them. Defraud, extort, suck dry and toss aside the uncosmopolitan politicians.

A ban on political broadcast ads does more to protect politicians, and by extension politics and the political process, than the ban does harm. Doyle would have been protected.

From another aspect, I have not kept the books for a Salem candidate's campaign but it seems to me ten, twenty, thirty-thousand dollar amounts are not too easily lost sight of 'in the heat of the campaign.' Odd, if not suspect, that Doyle didn't miss the money's ad's effects it was intended to buy. At the same time, (last summer into fall), Doyle was logging beaucoup hours 'dropping in' on Liars Larson's broadcast program. Offhand, it was about $30,000 worth of Liars' radio broadcast hours. As an offhand, not entirely uneducated guess at the price of radio time. Audit of Doyle's time blocks on Liars air would, of course, detail the value in dollars. Liars has some kind of relationship with Comcast now, where he gets a farthing of every Comcast cable subscriber's monthly payment, because Liars is in the Comcast bundle. Paying for the bundle means paying for Liars, because he's in it.

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[off-topic comment deleted.]

Living in Salem as I do, I watched the Doyle re-election campaign closely. And I noted this item tonite on the KATU site.

It was the latest development in an unfolding state investigation that could jeopardize Doyle's position as the powerful co-chairman of the Legislature's budget-writing committee.

The Salem Republican listed expenditures of $20,000 to Salem consultant Thomas Mann's firm in an amended campaign finance report he filed with the state Friday after questions were raised about his earlier report.

However, Mann on Tuesday directly contradicted Doyle. "Did I get paid? The answer is no," Mann told The Associated Press.

House Speaker Karen Minnis on Tuesday forwarded a copy of a letter she received from Mann on the subject to the secretary of state's office, which on Monday launched an investigation into possible election law violations by Doyle.

Asked whether the controversy could lead Minnis to remove Doyle as co-chairman of the Joint Ways and Means Committee, Minnis spokesman Charles Deister said: "She has not made a decision regarding that at this time." << Mann is apparently angry, among other things, because his company was wrongly listed on the C& E report--apparently Red Cell is involved in national work and doesn't get involved in Oregon campaigns. A ban on broadcast advertising would not have solved the problem of listing someone on a C & E report who says he was never paid and didn't like the publicity his company was given.

Apologies for my ignorance. As I read more information on the story it does indeed sound very fishy; I hope the case is vigorously pursued and, if wrongdoing occurred, that his punishment is harsh. Not so much for the actual crime, though it is bad, but for being a lying, cheating politician. I'm just sick to death of them. In the context of "normal" C&E errors, though, I stand by my earlier comments.

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Okay, delusions of grandeur time. Liars Larson started his radio programming today with a pleading plea for Dan Doyle to come out of hiding and call in for Liars spin. (Which then Liars can parlay as 'exclusive scoop' of the poop, inflecting his charade as a legit 'reporting journalist' to his hypnotized listeners' minds.)

But Doyle is not calling in. (At this time ... always the liability of grand delusions in that they can >pop< in a moment.)

And the reason Doyle is not calling into Liars is related to, or is because of, the comment in this thread recalling Liars&Doyle hooking up for broadcasting time campaign 'expenditure' perhaps with a valuation of tens of thousands of dollars in air-time terms. Doyle saw the comment here because he reads Blue Oregon for his fear of it; or because someone sent it to him. Liars reads Blue Oregon for the same reason -- he's afraid not to.

Now, Doyle thinks he better not call because he does not want the Blue Oregon participation and notice (of him) to get larger, as an incidental mention of "Blue Oregon" on Liars air could proceed to. Liars thinks he can control his programming completely to keep out 'Blue Oregon.'

Okay, that's the delusion. That Doyle and Liars and the whole lot of 'them' are reading and ducking Blue Oregon, and that there is, here, power enough to derail 'them.' In one way it can be a self-fulfilling self-identity -- visualizing that Blue Oregon is mighty powerful leads to it and leads it to being, in fact, mighty powerful.

Delusion or vision? Time can answer that, no need to decide.

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<h2>Minnis has just pulled Doyle's chairmanship of Joint Ways & Means.</h2>