Rick Klein of ABC.com surveys the landscape and concludes:

An obscure congressman is fending off odd allegations being vetted by the ethics committee and is creating yet another vacancy. Then there’s Gov. David Paterson, D-N.Y., apparently in this for the long haul, even as prosecutors close in.

All while a legislative agenda stalls, with the White House pinning its hopes for a political comeback on an uncertain vote with less certain consequences.

Beyond the specific Republican opportunities this bizarre series of events is creating — and you can put Rep. Eric Massa’s, D-N.Y., seat near the top of your likely takeover list now — Democrats are falling into what’s become the pattern of power.

That pattern of legislative excess, corruption, and incompetence is what brought the Democrats into the majority in 2006. But parties rarely internalize the lessons and errors of the other side — so the cycle repeats itself again and again. Chalk it up to hubris or the inevitable isolation that occurs when one is trapped in the Beltway bubble. But if the Democrats get swept from power, they will have only themselves to blame, in large part for thinking they were immune to popular will and insulated from scrutiny.