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Wednesday, September 28, 2005Thoughts on Tom Delay's indictment:* I'm not too sure about the legal content of the indictment. * I'm not too sure about Tom Delay either. * This isn't a Trent Lott situation. Lott was a transparent idiot. Delay is a potential lawbreaker. That said, do we dump him? Yes, he's stepped down. But do we let him go gently into that dark night? Or do we rally for his restoration (even if we don't mean it). This is a touchy situation. If, as they claim, a good prosecutor can get an indictment of a ham sandwich, then we should shrink from taking pols out of commission on grounds of an indictment alone. Otherwise, the indictment ceases to become an instrument of the law and becomes a weapon for politics by other means. If we go batty over indictments, we run the risk of the further erosion of democracy and, worse, the loss of responsive (however irresponsible) pols as legal infighting, like lobbying, becomes more important than accountability to the citizenry for the keeping of one's office. Tom Delay's problem is that while we should stand by him on principle, there is less reason to stand by him as one of our fellows. His remarks about fat in the budget revealed someone far too committed to taking care of his buddies in Congress and the rep of his conference, when he should have been leading the charge to insist that we eschew the boondoggle Louisana aid will become until having decided what boondoggles to cut in its place. Let us prioritize how we waste our money, he might have suggested. Or rather, his old buddy, Dick Armey, might have suggested. If Delay were Dick Armey, one could imagine asking the right to fall all over itself, and even on its sword, to protect him. But he ain't. This is a moment, then, when the right should be joining ranks to protect Delay long enough that when we cut him loose, it doesn't represent the successful completion of a media-driven prosecution, but rather the putting out to pasture of a once faithful steed who just ain't what he was. Our problem here is that with Frist (the idiot) facing questions, and Delay in trouble, we can't just put out word that DAs with aspiration can hitch their wagon on the legal disembowelment of the Republican leadership while the Dems chant their usual money for the poor, not corporations dirge. Speaking of Frist, there's another reason why conservatives, however unhappy with Delay, have to be cautious. The last time we finished one of these, we didn't get Senate Majority Leader McConnell. We got the good doctor turned evil HMO mogul. If Delay goes, who should we be pushing for his replacement. And can we get our ducks in a row before we wind up with another feel-good Frist-type? 
posted by gbarto at 7:34 PM |
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