If I were Harry Reid, and if Mitch McConnell came to me and asked me to start some ethics hearings to give Larry Craig a hot-foot and make him quit, I think I’d say, “Sorry, Senator, but I think gross corruption on the part of the Ranking Member and former Chair of the Appropriations Committee takes precedence over toe-tapping by a back-bencher.” I think the “ethics truce” is a fool’s bargain for the Democrats in the first place, to say nothing of being an appalling dereliction of the Constitutional duty of the Congress to police its members’ conduct. But surely a rule that in effect gives the Republican leadership the power to damage or protect Republicans at its own whim must be the worst of all possible worlds.