Yeah, the John Street thing is depressing. But the funny thing is, at least at first, he got a "bounce" in the polls, not because liberals think the FBI probe is politcally motivated, but because he is making a convincing pitch to black philadelphians that it's racially motivated. The only people revealed to be subjects of this investigation are black!

Personally I suspect it is politically, not racially, motivated. The Republicans see Philly as a vulnerable city because Katz and Street ran close in the last election, and because Street himself has an image problem: he is affectionately known as "Mayor Snarly." So they figure it's a good place to use one of their old Rovian dirty tricks, and call out the Justice Department to begin a very public phase of their investigation right before the election, throwing enough people into doubt to shift the tide to Katz's side.

I hope Street wins at this point. If nothing else, Katz winning under these circumstances would be the most racially divisive thing to happen in Philly since Move and Mumia Abu Jamal. That we don't need.

DougR. Come on! Everyone knows by now that there was indeed a vast right-wing conspiracy out the discredit Clinton. To claim otherwise is simply ridiculous at this point. All the probes on Whitewater, Travelgate, filegate, all the rumors about the White House being vandalized by Clinton's staff, all the talk about inappropriate gifts taken from the White House by Clinton, all this was spun by a collection of conservative pundits, think-tanks, and politicians. None of it was true. They managed to find no indictable evidence of any kind on any charge except lying about a blow job. So if dozens of Republicans spending millions of dollars to drag embarrassing but not criminal details about his consenual sex life before a grand jury is not a vast (or at least pretty big) right-wing conspiracy, then what is?