The Note Hearts Delay

Sickening, why do I read them anymore?

1. There is an iron triangle of liberal interest groups, Democratic congressional staffers, and media jackals (both investigatively minded and liberally oriented) who have never identified with or liked Tom DeLay (and what he stands for) and are enjoying every minute of their conspiring to bring him down.

2. Almost every accusation swirling around DeLay involves actions by him that have exact analogues among other members of Congress of both parties (See, for example, today's front-page Los Angeles Times page-turner about MOCs employing relatives to do campaign work.).

3. If having close ties to self-interested and restaurant-owning lobbyists disqualified someone from a leadership position on Capitol Hill, it would be a body of all Indians and no chiefs. (Note Note: we refuse to indulge in the little boy game of being super excited about the return of the National Pastime to the Nation's Capital, but, yes, that "Indians" thing was for y'all and not meant to offend Native Americans. It was also an Abramoff reference.)


4. And/but without a functioning House ethics committee, there is no natural forum in which Leader DeLay can clear up the legit unanswered questions about some of his conduct. And/but his unwillingness to do it in the feeding frenzy of a packed press conference seems reasonable. May we suggest an interview with The Note, Dan Allen?

The fact is, many of Delay's more serious actions don't have "exact analogues among other members of Congress of both parties." What Delay did was to take money from businesses, foreign governments, Indian tribes and the like, dress it up to look like it was a donation to the generic sounding National Center for Public Policy Research, and then use the money to go on lavish, all expenses paid trips abroad. This is against the law. What he did in Texas, which has lead to several indictments against longtime Delay aides, was essentially the same thing: dressing up money from corporate sponsors and funneling it through the state party in Texas to the RNC and to individual House candidates. Not only that, but he likely used some of this money to stack the Texas State House so he could win approval of his redistricting plan. It's not just that he's a friend of Abramoff's, or employed members of his family. Delay sells his influence in Congress to the highest bidder. Whether the money is used to gerrymander the congressional map in Texas or whether it's used to enrich him personally, Delay finds a way to make them pay.

And for The Note to suggest that this is really all about not having a "natural forum" to clear up some "unanswered questions" when it was DeLay who destroyed the legitimacy of the House ethics committee to begin with...

..JMM has more.