Republican Congressman Bob Ney pled guilty to taking bribes from Jack Abramoff in federal court today. He's facing up to 10 years in prison and $500,000 worth of fines.

Among those connected to Abramoff's extra-legal largesse, Ney is unique in that it was well known he was person referred to as "Representative #1" in Abramoff's January plea agreement. Since that time, I 've often wondered why Ney never showed enough decency or loyalty to the Republican party to step aside earlier. Consider the arc of the Ney story over the last ten months:

- January 3: Exposed as Representative #1 in Abramoff guilty plea
- January 20: Announces bid for reelection
- May 2: Wins primary in OH-18 with 68% of the vote
- May 18: House Ethics Committee announces investigation
- August 14: Withdraws from race
- September 15: News of guilty plea becomes public
- October 12: Pleas guilty in federal court

In retrospect it looks even worse, because Ney lied his way through the primary protesting his innocence even though he probably had a pretty good idea even at that point that he wasn't going to beat the rap against him. (The Republican leadership bears some of the blame as well for not taking a stronger stand against Ney earlier, by the way).

Through a combination of arrogance, ambition, and corruption Ney has arrived at the worst of all possible outcomes: he's going to prison next year as a convicted felon, and by dragging out the process (culminating with a guilty plea 3 weeks before the midterm elections) he's done about as much damage as he could possibly do to the Republican party under the circumstances.