Scandal a Brewin'

The N&O is digging in hard on the lottery scandal story here in N.C. and doing some good investigative work. As expected, the editorial writers weighed in today, and as expected the piece reveals little new information and offers up few useful opinions. The theme of the editorial writers is that this is a problem with the influence of lobbyists on government. But get this - not once in the long editorial do Steve Ford and his folks mention that the real scandal is with the Democratic party in N.C. In fact, they don't mention the party affiliation of the accused (Easley, Black and Basnight) even once in the article.

Now their argument will be that readers know these men are Democrats, but as the Civitas Institute has demonstrated in their polls, a majority of N.C. residents in fact do not know that the state is controlled by Democrats.

The same editorial writers, when commenting on the relationship of lobbyists with Tom Delay, repeatedly noted that Delay was a Republican and framed the problem as one for the Republican party. So why is this lobbying scandal in N.C. different? How long can the N&O get away with supporting their favored party in light of the continuing series of revelations about improper behavior (slush fund, transportation dept. failures, the lottery)?
Jim Black