Why isn't indicted GOP moneyman Tom Noe listed on our new TPM Grand Ole Docket?

Good question, which a number of you have asked. So let me take a moment to note a few points about our Grand Ole Docket methodology.

Admittedly, once you throw the net wide open, there's just no end of GOP malefactors out there. So we've tried to focus the Docket a bit more narrowly, limiting it to DC public corruption and scandal stories, particularly the Abramoff web of bribery and sundry hijinks.

So, for instance, we don't have Larry Franklin (of the AIPAC case) listed, or Tom Noe, or Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, or anyone from the Kentucky governor's scandal-rama.

We do have Scooter Libby, who's probably on the edge of the criteria, but makes it in on sheer indictment-hood.

We also have the three guys who (okay, allegedly) whacked Gus Boulis down in Florida. But that's pretty tightly connected to the SunCruz-Ney subdivision of the Abramoff scandal. So in fairness to them, they make it in too.

At first we didn't have James Tobin and the rest of schemers from the New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal. But we ended up including them -- mainly because our reporting (and, from what we can tell, the DOJ's too) strongly suggests there's a nexus between the phone-jamming case and the Abramoff scandal.

After thinking about it, we don't want let TPM Readers in Ohio wallow in a sinkhole of corruption without some relief. So we may set up an Ohio sub-Docket. We'll keep you posted.