Like so many police dramas on television, the iconic dome of the U.S. Capitol should be wrapped with yellow police crime scene tape given the acts of moral depravity being committed by the Republican leadership these days. If detective Columbo were on the case he would easily spot the culprits because their fingerprints are all over the nation’s economic downturn. They have attempted to implicate the innocent but have left a trail of evidence that leads right back to the door of the Republican Caucus. Like the culprit ridden with guilt and waiting to be caught, they return to the scene of the crime day after day, trying to convince the American public that they are innocent, though if given a polygraph the boldness of their lies would be plainly evident. It is CSI: Capitol Hill and the Speaker of the House, Budget Committee chair and the Senate Minority Leader are the leading suspects.

We have all been victimized by the inexcusable and childish behavior of Republicans in Congress. It is why public approval of Congress is at a historic low. Once again, as they did when Newt Gingrich took over the House, Republicans have used their majority as an excuse to act foolishly rather than an opportunity to provide real leadership. At a time when millions of Americans are suffering, and Republicans and Democrats are being devastated by unemployment and home foreclosures, the best Republican "leaders" can offer is a retread of the same warped ideas that got us in this mess in the first place. They criticize the President for his common sense and fair approach to deficit reduction, an approach that most Americans support mind you, and simply walk lock-step like drones to the beat of a “no tax” pledge pushed like crack by a right-wing, unelected conservative activist. Republicans criticize the President’s jobs proposal but offer no reasonable alternative, and instead promote policies – tax cuts and the elimination of business and environmental regulations – that no credible, partisan free economist will stand behind as the way to economic growth.

Republicans have mastered the art of double-talk. It’s why the leadership needs to be put in the “box” and given a good grilling by detective Frank Pembleton of Homicide: Life in the Street fame. Many in the GOP lawmakers criticized the President’s stimulus package as another example of the excesses of government, yet secretly accepted the money for projects in their districts. Some Republican elected officials played hardball and denounced the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars, only to deny their constituents for the sake of political grandstanding. Republicans criticize the President over the deficit though their fingerprints are on the shovels that dug the hole. President Obama’s insistence that the wealthy in this country should pay more in taxes is met with ridicule by the millionaire boy’s club in Congress, but supported by some of the nation’s most affluent titans of business and most regular folk of red and blue persuasion.

It appears Republicans are anti-government except for the government paychecks they receive. I am always amazed at the hypocrisy of Republicans in Congress who rail against the government but spend millions to keep a government job. If government is the culprit, why are these Republicans desperately hanging on to jobs in the very institution they claim to despise? It must be torture having to be chauffeured around, run from cocktail party to cocktail party, travel on government-paid junkets, and be forced to make all those media appearances while they hold their noses to avoid inhaling the “stench” of government. Give me a break. Government works for these Republicans, and they only oppose policies that don’t benefit them or their wealthy and well-heeled interests that pay their way to Capitol Hill.

Americans are being ripped off by the Capitol Hill gang and it is time we called in our best crime fighters. Let’s seal off the Capitol grounds, dust for fingerprints, gather DNA evidence and put every member of the Republican Caucus under the hot lamps and grill them until they confess to their misdeeds. The chalk outline of a body on the Capitol grounds represents all of us who have been victimized by the Republican leadership and their merry band of Tea Party zealots.