He's actually a small time piker in the usual scale of Republican theft

WASHINGTON, March 10 — A former top White House aide was arrested on Thursday in the Maryland suburbs on charges that he stole merchandise from a number of retailers, (stores like Target and Hecht's) the police in Montgomery County, Md., said Friday.

One hardly knows where to begin with Claude A. Allen, until recently Bush's top domestic policy adviser .

He's a thief from the Bush White House and he shops (steals) from Target's.

I tell you, nothing says class like the GOP.

And this guy is a real winner.

According to The Washington Post: Allen is a self-described born-again Christian who got his start in politics working for Jesse Helms (R), the conservative former North Carolina senator.

Allen stirred controversy as Helms's campaign spokesman in 1984 by telling a reporter that then-Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. -- Helms's opponent -- was politically vulnerable because of his links to the "queers." He later explained that he used the word not to denigrate anyone but as a synonym for "odd and unusual."

Before that, Allen worked for the Virginia state attorney general's office and as state health and human resources secretary. In that job, he earned a reputation as a staunch conservative; once he kept Medicaid funds from an impoverished rape victim who wanted an abortion.