Earlier today top Senate Democrats (Reid, Schumer, Durbin, and Stabenow) fired off a letter to Vice President Cheney expressing how dismayed they are about his choices to replace the recently departed Scooter Libby (who pleaded not guilty today to the indictment charges, by the way) and claiming it signals "business as usual" from the Vice President. You can read the full text of the letter here (pdf).

As an aside, I can't help but give Senator Schumer a "chutzpah award" for publicly castigating Cheney over not "cleaning house" in the wake of the Libby indictment when Schumer's own staff at the DSCC was caught up in a criminal scandal just weeks ago.

You might recall that Katie Barge and Lauren Weiner, the "plumbers" who used Michael Steele's social security number to illegally obtain a copy of his credit report, stayed on Schumer's payroll for almost two months after being suspended when the report of their actions surfaced in July.  In the end, Schumer went ahead and paid their legal bills as well.