If you're like many Americans - including some of our staff - the last of your Thanksgiving leftovers may still be taking up a lot of space in your refrigerator or freezer. Depending on what you do with them, leftovers can be quite tasty, when served as turkey pot pie, for example.
The problem some folks have however, is knowing when to cut their comestible losses and get rid of leftovers that have been around too long.
For the Republican Party, they keep opening their political icebox - but the stench isn't going away.
In fact, Monday afternoon, the stench of the former prime choice Herman Cain gained a new aroma of failure, as a Georgia woman came forward to accuse Cain of a thirteen year affair. For Cain, when you add this scandal to the host of gaffes and other sexual misconduct allegations, his political goose is far more than cooked.
We're aware that for some politicians, affairs may not seem like a big deal these days. After all, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich not only is known to have had sexual affairs - he even left one of his spouses while while she was undergoing cancer treatment, to marry his next wife.
Speaking of Newt and leftovers, we keep thinking Mr. Gingrich is the Republican Party's version of the embarrassingly old jar of jelly or can of vegetables that too many of us have buried in the back of our food pantries. Newt's claims about being a historian expired back in 1995, when Washington Monthly exposed him to be a factually challenged student of history. Despite his current poll numbers and endorsements, his current campaign has failed to build any serious infrastructure and is dangerously empty. Like a nearly empty pie shell rotting in the fridge, Newt's campaign only looks good until you put some pressure on it - then it crumbles.
Not to be outdone by Cain or Gingrich, the man who is still the likely nominee for the GOP in 2012, Mitt Romney, got strung up by four minutes of his own words on Monday. Admittedly, the new campaign mini-movie, 'Mitt v Mitt' is a creation of the Democratic Party. Still, there are plenty of other websites where the former governor's harsh words and past positions are shown to strongly contradict his own current positions. In short, Mitt's already turned on himself - not a good sign for the GOP's most likely dish.
We realize there are more potential Presidential candidates for the GOP than just Romney, Gingrich, and Cain. That said, the strong likelihood is that one of those three will be the main political course the Republican Party serves up in next year's presidential contest.
Democrats shouldn't be claiming their political kitchen is spotless either - especially in light of the widening scandal at the Federal Reserve. If this disgusting display of mismangement had been contained to President Bush's adminstration and ended when President Obama took office, we could say this was simply another example of Republican hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, this mess at the Fed appears to have begun under Bush's people, and continued into the Obama administration - where it seems that the policy recipes for secrecy of Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner have grown far worse than simply growing stale.
After looking at the full menu of what's currently on political display, we have no doubt the appetites of some Americans may be curbed for a short time - a good thing, in light of the way too many of us stuffed ourselves this year.
