The little woman

Twenty years ago, political pay-offs usually took the form of book deals. Now it's all about the wife.

As you know, Blago toyed with the idea of trading a senatorship in exchange for a cushy do-nothing, high-paying job for his wife. But many people still do not know that Norm Coleman -- the guy who may or may not have beaten Al Franken in MN -- has been accused of taking the same sort of pay-off.

I learned the latest about the matter from an outfit called CIM News, a name that made even me blush. They directed me to this news account. (I admit it: TPM has been all over this story. But Josh Marshall pissed me off a long time ago, so I stopped reading TPM.)

For those who came in late: Basically, there is a Houston-based oil firm called Deep Marine that allegedly wants to get in on Norm Coleman's good side. So desperate are they to befriend the Senator that they have come up with a sneaky way to get him some cash. Allegedly.

Why Coleman? We don't know. What do they want from him? We don't know. We don't even yet know if the story about Deep Marine is true.

But we do know that some people think it's true -- and so convinced are they that they have filed not one but two lawsuits against the current controller of Deep Marine, a fellow who goes by the name of Nasser Kazeminy.

The party filing the first lawsuit is the former head of Deep Marine, Paul McKim. The other lawsuit was filed by some folks who invested in Deep Marine. You know you are not going to have a good day when the people who invested in your company file a lawsuit against you.

Here's the interesting part: Instead of giving a bribe directly to Coleman ("But it would be wrong," intones the shade of a noted piano player), Kaseminy allegedly funnelled money through the company that Mrs. Coleman works for. Paying off the Senator's wife can be a way of paying off the Senator.

Allegedly. I'm not saying that I know all of this for certain. I'm just saying that a lawsuit is a very expensive thing, and it is difficult for me to believe that Mr. McKim and those investors would go to such trouble if they got their information via ouija board or the Magic 8-Ball.

Coleman is trying to claim that this whole thing is a political put-up job engineered by Al Franken. But McKim is a Republican. And not one shred of evidence (known to me) links Franken to these two lawsuits.

So: Mrs. Blagojevich, meet Mrs. Coleman. I'll just step back and let you ladies talk. You seem to have things in common.

And perhaps you will allow a third lady to join you for a little girl talk? I'm thinking of Michelle Obama. She's in your "ladies club" too. Hell, she founded it. Remember this video...? It's worth seeing again...