Oh ShihtHsu

Wow. I take a couple of days off (if you count taking my teenage daughter school - i.e. clothes - shopping at the mall a day off) and President Bush pops up in f'ing Ramadi. I'll have to loaf more often.

One thing (of the several I'll catch up on today) that transpired in my blogging absence is a third shoe dropping in the Hillary Clinton-Norm Hsu story that the next president of the United States may not have been anticipating:

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible campaign-finance violations by top Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, according to people familiar with the probe. On Friday, Mr. Hsu surrendered to California officials on an unrelated grand-theft charge dating to the early 1990s.

Mr. Hsu, who, until earlier this week was one of the biggest fundraisers for Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, was booked at the San Mateo County jail, where he was handcuffed and later released on $2 million bail. Wearing a black suit and white shirt, Mr. Hsu rushed to a waiting black Chevy Suburban outside the jail lobby Friday afternoon without answering any questions from reporters.

Mrs. Clinton's campaign declined to comment yesterday. The New York senator, along with other Democrats, has said she would turn over donations received from Mr. Hsu to charity.

But Mr. Hsu's legal woes are a political blow to the many prominent Democrats who accepted his funds, in particular Mrs. Clinton. While there is no sign any of them were aware of Mr. Hsu's actions and prior record, they could be embarrassed by the probe of his fundraising.

"No sign any of them were aware of Mr. Hsu's actions and prior record" YET, the Wall Street Journal means. If the Bush Justice Department treats this investigation a lot more seriously than it has every previous crack it's taken at tying off Clinton scandal loose ends - and more seriously than the [*AHEM*] Fred Thompson-led Senate committee that "investigated" the 1996 ChiComm funny money scandal - perhaps the swift and severe justice that the Clinton Machine evaded a decade ago will finally land on the former first lady with both feet, and a year and a half too early to boot.

No, I'm not getting my hopes up, and neither should any other veteran Clintophobe. Mrs. Clinton studied how not to conduct a coverup first-hand as a member of the Senate Committee that investigated Watergate. She and Bill and the rest of La Clinton Nostra learned that lesson well, effortlessly bobbing and weaving their way out of upwards of a dozen scandals any one of which would have brought down any of their predecessors. You have to think they've planned for this one as well.

But it's hard for the mouth not to water at the scruptious irony of this same dynamic coming back to bite Hillary when the prize she's been chasing for all these years is so tantalizingly close. All the same questions are there: From where did Norm Hsu get all that campaign cash? Did you know, as the WSJ reported over the weekend, that Hsu did flee the country? To Hong Kong, as it happens, where he evidently left bilking clothiers behind for the big time of funneling "funds from international sources hostile to the United States" to the American political party and its members that are their most bosom friends. Which means that he was on his second "tour of duty" as the tool of overseas enemies attempting to exploit the amoral mercenaries with the "D"s after their names to subvert and manipulate our democratic (small "d") process in order to remotely control American foreign policy to their inimical ends.

That's speculation, of course; but it's educated speculation. The at-best reckless disregard for due diligence Mrs. Clinton's campaign (and those of numerous other Donks) demonstrated in accepting "Mr." Hsu's shady boodle will, shall we say, not reflect well upon them, though if that's the extent of the scandal (for now) they'll survive it. But with Hsu facing several felony counts just for the campaign finance shenanigans that have come to light so far, each carrying a penalty of a quarter-million dollar fine and five years in the slammer, the feds will have ample leverage with which to persuade him to spill everything he knows about "funds from international sources hostile to the United States" and their "warm relationship" with the Clinton Machine and the Democrat Party.

This Oriental bagman can't flee. Unless he's just an independent freelancer, or the Clintonoids' Byzantine Asian fundraising apparatus is sufficiently organized for compartmentalization of individual "cells," or Hillary has leverage on him far more harrowing than anything DoJ can throw at him, I'd say Senator Thunder Thighs' coronational processional just may be in some real jeopardy.

So just watch as the investigation produces its juicy results on November 5th, 2008. You know, so as "not to influence the election."

Hey, the "New Tone" wouldn't have it any other way.

UPDATE: Double your pleasure, double your fun....