The DJ Ted Stevens Remix “Series Of Tubes” goes video…

Oh my. The Alaska Republican corruption and bribery brouhaha has kicked into Beltway gear:

…Officially, the scandal has remained confined to Juneau, where Alaska lawmakers had grown so accustomed to operating under the presumption of impropriety that several of them embroidered ball caps with the letters CBC, for “Corrupt Bastards Club.” (An Anchorage coffeehouse now offers Corrupt Bastards Brew.) But with signs that the investigation is brushing against Alaska’s lone congressman, Don Young (R), and its longtime and venerated senator Ted Stevens (R), residents of the Last Frontier are experiencing a rare spasm of soul-searching….

“It was common knowledge that everything was corrupt,” said Ray Metcalfe, a former Republican legislator known as “Disco Ray” while in office, but known in later years for his vain efforts to persuade state officials to investigate Ben Stevens. “It was common knowledge, but nobody wanted to talk about it.”

The brazenness evident on the tapes has taken many aback, however.

“There’s a whole kind of culture of unreality,” said Michael Carey, former editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News, whose Web site, http://www.adn.com, posted much of the evidence. “I always thought there were people on the take, but in the way of campaign contributions — traditionally legitimate ways to game the system.”…

The multiple corruption investigations have uncovered so much dirt, that the Anchorage Daily News has an entire section in the paper labeled “Political Investigations.” It isn’t just Alaskan politicians who are caught up in the smarm net, though — as it turns out, VECO and other companies who have been participating in alleged bribery and pay to play schemes in AK also happen to be big GOP donors in the lower 48 and in the national races as well. From ADN:

…Campaign donation records also show that Veco Corp. sent tens of thousands of dollars to candidates outside Alaska, including President Bush. One of the executives, Veco founder and chief executive Bill Allen, served as state financial co-chairman in Bush’s 2000 campaign.

Since 1990, Anchorage-based Veco, its employees and their family members gave the state and national Republican parties, GOP congressional candidates and Bush slightly more than $1 million, according to an analysis by the watchdog Center for Responsive Politics. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns received a total of about $24,000 of that money.

If this sounds like an extension of the K Street plans of Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney and the whole Culture of Corruption gang…that’s because it is pretty darned similar. From sea to shining sea, this sort of oily behavior just doesn’t pass the smell test. And, as reader ET points out on his Alaska Progressive blog, folks in Alaska have started publicly calling out the smarm…one sign of the times, I suppose.

Here’s hoping for more of that to come all over this nation of ours.