I've never been a fan of Sen. Ted Stevens. Indeed, the Alaska Senator has been one of my least favorite Republicans.

Now he has been indicted on charges of misleading investigators probing renovations to his home made by various corporate interests.

Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator and a figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, was indicted Tuesday on seven counts of failing to disclose thousands of dollars in services he received from a company that helped renovate his home.

Stevens, the first sitting U.S. senator to face federal indictment since 1993, has been dogged by a federal investigation into his home renovation project and his dealings with wealthy oil contractors.

If the title doesn't make my position on the matter clear, let me say it right now -- Ted Stevens needs to resign from the Senate NOW, and withdraw from his race for reelection. Such a move would be good for the nation, his state, and his party.

That isn't a judgment on his ultimate guilt or innocence of the charges leveled against him -- that is based upon the clear impropriety of the various gifts that he apparently received. He didn't merely cross a line, he blew past it while firing his afterburners. There might be some room to argue about a gas grill or tools or some of the miscellaneous items he received, but the wholesale renovation of his home for nothing or next-to-nothing is sufficient to lead a reasonable person to decide that Stevens is corrupt in the common understanding of the word, regardless of whether his actions meet the legal definition.

And it strikes me that there is only one individual out there who can take his place as the GOP standard-bearer this fall -- Gov. Sarah Palin.