The AP's Donna Cassata takes a momentary break from hard news to take a step back and look at the status of Republican Congressional leaders and their problems with ethics rules.

Heading into a midterm election year, Republicans find themselves with not one, but two congressional leaders — Bill Frist in the Senate and Tom DeLay in the House — fending off questions of ethical improprieties.

[...]

For Republicans, the timing couldn't be worse.

"The last thing you needed was a Martha Stewart problem," Marshall Wittman, a one-time conservative activist who now works for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, said of Frist. "He doesn't even have a good clothing line or a popular television show."

[...]

"The overall problem the Republican Party has is it is increasingly looking like Tammany Hall," Wittman said. "An odor of sleaziness is enveloping the Republicans and seeping into the administration."

With all of the gifts the GOP has handed to the Democrats since last November's election, the Dems would be remiss if they were unablt to capitalize next November.