The Culling.

"'It's just astounding -- the very arrogance,' said Cynthia Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and a close observer of state politics. 'And yesterday he was saying there's not a cloud in the sky.'" Poised on the brink of a new Democratic era in Washington as we are, what better time to see the cobwebs cleared out of some our own party's shady corners? First indicted and pretty clearly crooked congressman William Jefferson, much like his GOP counterpart Ted Stevens, went down to a surprising defeat in Louisiana against GOP challenger Anh "Joseph" Cao. And, of course, in today's big news, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been charged with all manner of crooked schemes by former Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, including brazenly trying to pawn off Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder. ("[It's] a f**king valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing.")

Well, good riddance to both. Any way you cut it, this is addition by subtraction for our party. (And for the potential conspiracy theorists out there, Slate's John Dickerson has a good post on why the President-elect "comes off as good as he could possibly have hoped for: He's behaving well even when you don't think anyone is watching." And, with a tip of the hat to Al Smith and Tammany Hall, Politico's Ben Smith ably discusses how Obama kept his independence from the Chicago machine back in the day.)