Really, what is there to say? After a six-years the Department of Justice dropped their investigation into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s connection to the Jack Abramoff scandal. There are a few things left to say:

1) It’s really hard to convict someone whose ideological proclivities happen to overlap with the nefarious actions of Washington’s former super-lobbyist Abramoff, who was also the target’s close friend.

2) The laws written to punish official corrupt activity are very difficult to enforce. Gathering evidence is also incredibly difficult. Absent complete idiocy by the target–Jim Traficant, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Bob Ney, Michael Myers, William Jefferson–it is difficult to prove that corrupt activity took place.

3) The Public Integrity Unit at the Justice Department made some serious progress by obtaining convictions on corruption related charges of numerous targets, but they also completely screwed up along the way. The Ted Stevens charges were thrown out and the unit could never pin down either DeLay or John Doolittle. They also over played their hand by entering and seizing documents from William Jefferson’s congressional office.