Let's review the current state of affairs by the numbers:

2 lobbyists indicted for doing exactly what would have been made illegal by

1 bill submitted by Frank Buck that went down to defeat by the democratic machine that has controlled the state legislature for

125 years

5 current and future legislators indicted. The only R in the bunch is one who supported the democratic machine for house leadership.

3 democratic party heads resigned. Includes the party chairman of the states two largest (and most Democratic) counties, plus the state chairman.

323,000 tncare recipients disenrolled.

67,000 tncare disenrollees denied reenrollment by the governor's party.

1 leaked document showing that some of those 323,000 will be back on tncare just in time for the election next year.

1 high ranking administration official canned for apparently lascivious behavior. But nobody can actually say what it was because all the documents were shredded to protect . . . somebody?

1 newspaper which once breathlessly awaited the mayor/governor's every utterance, now using words like "shred" and "hedge" in front page headlines about the governor.

61 percent of republicans favor him, but the bad news is that

48 percent of his own party does. So he has only half of his own party satisfied while his support in the other party is there, but probably only an inch deep.

It all adds up to a bad couple of months for the Governor. So how does he propose to remedy this? By bringing in lobbyists to guide him on legislation to reform lobbying. Too bad it's not already 2006, because he still has

17 months to put the wheels back on.

That lobbyists think they are in a position to "accept" or "reject" ethic reform proposals and the politician don't see any problems with it is indicative of exactly how monumental the ethics challenges are.