Three Cheers for DeLay

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 5, 2006 10:54 AM

They are doing the rain dance, whooping it up, high-fiving, backslapping, spiking the ball in the end zone.

For liberals, Tom DeLay's announced departure from Congress is practically a national holiday.

It's not hard to understand why. Whether you like or detest DeLay, it's beyond debate that he is a tough partisan brawler who wasn't nicknamed the Hammer for nothing. He used slashing rhetoric against the other party, engineered a power-play redistricting in Texas, pressured K Street lobbies to hire Republicans, smacked around the media and otherwise played the Sugar Land version of hardball.

Still, DeLay seemed to have nine political lives. He managed to get himself admonished by the House ethics committee three times, two of his former top aides have pleaded guilty in the Abramoff probe, and even when Delay got indicted in a campaign-finance case and stepped aside as majority leader, he was still a behind-the-scenes player.

So it's hardly surprising that the left is in a celebratory mood; DeLay just stirs up emotions in a way that Denny Hastert, for example, doesn't. In surfing around, I don't find many conservatives defending DeLay outright. Some blame the press or the Texas prosecutor in his case; others spin it as good news for the Republican Party.

At least DeLay was candid enough to acknowledge that he'd have trouble winning reelection.

I must say, I found this sentence in yesterday's WashPost piece quite jarring: "Under Texas law DeLay must either die, be convicted of a felony, or move out of his district to be removed from the November ballot." Doesn't it sound like the first one is being offered as an option?

DeLay, meanwhile, says he's "excited" at being "liberated" from the House--who exactly kept him in the prison all these years--and that he'll still play a role in national politics. (Does that mean he'll become a Fox commentator like Newt?)

"Some said DeLay, a formidable fundraiser and self-described born-again Christian who still enjoys broad support within the religious right community, could quickly become a force to be reckoned with," says the Los Angeles Times . "Others predicted that DeLay will find it hard to shape a new role as long as he remains under the legal and ethical cloud created by his indictment last year by a Texas grand jury on money-laundering charges."

The New York Times does the professional obit:

"For 11 tumultuous years, Mr. DeLay proved remarkably effective in pushing the Republican agenda through the House -- tax cuts, budget cuts, an overhaul of Medicare and energy bills -- pulling the necessary 218 votes together from often narrow and fractious Republican majorities.

"But he was also a man who, perhaps more than any other, embodied the fierce partisanship of his era -- a prime mover behind the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, a practitioner of take-no-prisoners electoral politics and a legislative strategist who many Democrats asserted saw no real role for the minority in the legislative process.

"Scholars and analysts disagree over the extent to which Mr. DeLay created -- or reflected -- the intense polarization of his times."

Look who's criticizing now:

"Departing Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas said yesterday that House Republicans have no vision or agenda and have let the Democrats choose the GOP leadership," says the Washington Times .

And the reason? "Breaking up our leadership has taken its toll."

If only I were still around. . . .

The Chicago Tribune's Michael Tackett : "Tom DeLay, the last of the leaders of the Republican Revolution still standing, has finally been consumed by his own fire. . . .

"Even though DeLay chose to go, it was not quietly. Nowhere in his words could one read sense of contrition. That lack of acknowledgement is perhaps just one of the reasons that the revolution that DeLay rode to power seems to be struggling to breathe."

Brief time-out here: Yesterday I reported Katie Couric's pending jump from "Today" to the "CBS Evening News," and this morning she makes it official .

Now to the bloggers on DeLay. Josh Marshall says the Hammer's legacy lives on:

"So DeLay is out. But it's DeLay's House. DeLay's Republican DC machine. They built and fortified it with the money he brought in. The great majority of them voted for the 'DeLay Rule' custom tailored for Majority Leader DeLay to avoid stepping down even after indictment. The current Republican membership of the House ethics committee was hand-picked to provide protection for DeLay and the old membership was purged. He's their guy. Their rule rests on his machine. They can run but they can't hide."

Kos is on the same page: "Republicans will pretend that all of DeLay's sins will wash away and no longer affect congressional Republicans. And the media bots will dutifully repeat that spin.

"Except that every Republican in Congress enabled DeLay. They all fed from his trough. They even tried to change House rules to allow him to continue serving as House leader while under indictment. And DeLay's cowardly resignation is further proof of just how corrupt and corrosive he really was."

HuffPoster Cenk Uygur is uncorking the Champagne:

"The Hammer is down and out! It's a good day to be an American.

"If I sound festive, that's because I am. One of the cornerstones of Republican corruption and fundamentalism has been knocked out. Greed is not good. Justice does prevail. There is hope in the world.

"For six long years, a lot of us have been asking, 'How long can this go on?' It seemed like there was never going to be any check on these out of control Republicans running the country into the ground. Now, it looks like the American system does work after all.

"Let me be the first to say -- before DeLay even announces his resignation -- that he is not resigning because he wants to spend more time with his family. It might very well be because he needs to spend more time in prison.

"Last week, prosecutors were singing the praises of Jack Abramoff in open court, telling a judge in one of his cases how cooperative he has been with federal prosecutors. . . . No way DeLay steps down unless they've nailed him. What, he was afraid of a tough electoral fight in November? It's inconceivable that would scare him away."

Hey, nobody likes to lose.

Andrew Sullivan questions the silence on the right:

"You know it's bad for the GOP when National Review and Instapundit barely mention the big news of the day. Tom DeLay's resignation from elective politics, barely a year and a half after the triumphant Republican re-election campaign of 2004, is a remarkable fall from grace. It happened because the bankruptcy of contemporary Republicanism is increasingly unmissable. And it happened because of obvious corruption, sleaze and a complete lack of broad public appeal. DeLay's skills were not retail; they were back-door: the schemes and deals and handshakes that are inextricable from effective government but not pretty in daylight. DeLay took that ruthlessness too far, got exposed, and now fairly taints the GOP's broad national image."

Instapundit does say he's never been a DeLay fan.

Betsy's Page says DeLay has denied the Dems his seat:

"The Republicans have to be heaving a sigh of relief about Tom DeLay stepping down. They won't have to defend his ties to corruption. And the Democrats must be cursing. We now go from having a close race that could have been a Democratic pickup to one that the GOP will most probably win. The liberals can celebrate this scalp on their belts, but they will have won the battle and lost the war."

Gateway Pundit addresses the opposition:

"You and your media continually remind Americans of indictments as if they were convictions. You don't report that the prosecutor is a liberal hack who tried and failed six times to get Tom Delay indicted on bogus charges. You don't say boo about the bogus charges that are thrown out. You mention in your reports that 'former' employees of Delay were convicted as if this places guilt on Representative Delay. You attack, attack, attack, until the person has had enough. And, this is your win. And, if Republicans think that these attacking politics, the only politics the Democrats know, will stop here, HAH! Think again. You get more of what you reward. Democrats cannot win on their liberal socialist agenda. Liberals can win if they personally attack. Today, dems may have won a round."

Um, conservatives can't win if they personally attack?

John Hinderaker at Power Line sees DeLay being railroaded:

It's too bad, I think. DeLay was an effective leader, albeit too liberal in recent years. It's possible, of course, that he did something wrong along the way. But there is no evidence of that in the public domain; as I've often said, the politically-inspired prosecution of DeLay by Travis County's discredited DA, Ronnie Earle, is a bad joke. As far as we can tell at the moment, DeLay appears to be yet another victim of the Democrats' politics of personal destruction--the only politics they know."

For the record, "politics of personal destruction" was a phrase coined by Bill Clinton when he felt the Republicans were practicing it against him.

Ed Morrissey will miss DeLay, but says he bears some of the blame:

"DeLay may have taken one for the team here. I'm sorry to see him go under these circumstances. The Hammer has never made it onto my list of favorites in DC, but up until recently he performed reliably in keeping the caucus focused on the agenda. This prosecution pursued by Ronnie Earle is the worst kind of political hackery, and to the extent that this weighed on his campaign, DeLay's withdrawal and resignation diminishes the political process.

"However, no one can deny that DeLay carries baggage, and at least a significant portion is of his own making. Jack Abramoff may have disavowed any connections between himself and DeLay, but the former leader made it his business to engage K Street and turn it red. This is nothing different than what Democrats did for forty years prior to 1994, but the point was that the GOP promised us something different in the Contract With America."

This piece in the Cleveland Plain Dealer strikes me as more than just "embarrassing":

"Secretary of State Ken Blackwell made an embarrassing announcement Monday: He accidentally bought stock in Diebold Inc., a voting machine maker that benefited from decisions made by his office.

"In a required filing with the Ohio Ethics Commission, the GOP gubernatorial hopeful said his hefty portfolio included 178 shares of Diebold stock, which sold for a loss.

"'While I was unaware of this stock in my portfolio, its mere presence may be viewed as a conflict,' Blackwell wrote in a letter that accompanies his annual financial disclosure statement."

Accidentally? Unaware?

Not much silver lining for the GOP in Katharine Harris's imploding Senate campaign. Dick Polman tallies the damage:

"In a short period of time, she has been on the receiving end of resignations from: Her chief political strategist. Her director of field operations. Her campaign manager. Her campaign press secretary. Her campaign treasurer. Her pollster. Her media consultant. Her national financial director. And the traveling aide who dispensed bumper stickers.

"She was never the GOP's first choice for the race - because of her polarizing reputation (she will galvanize Democrats to show up en masses in November) and because, frankly, a lot of Republican insiders simply don't like her very much - and that was even before she got hit with questions about why she took $32,000 in illegal campaign contributions from disgraced defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who recently pleaded guilty to bribing a California congressman. At this point, Harris apparently has only one option left, the option often taken by politicians who are locked in a downward spiral. And, of course, she is taking it already: She's blaming the media, which she says has 'relentlessly and personally' attacked her."

Apparently, everything's our fault.

One of the nice things about CBS's Public Eye blog is that network executives are asked to explain themselves. The latest was triggered by this Richard Sandomir column in the NYT:

"In the midst of Ed Bradley's worshipful two-part profile of Tiger Woods on '60 Minutes' last Sunday, I wondered if it was an infomercial or if Woods had paid a fee for these adoring 25 minutes. With nothing new to report -- and not a single tough question in his arsenal -- Bradley chose to join Camp Tiger." . . .

Jeff Fager, the program's executive producer, responded:

" 'Should everybody who goes on '60 Minutes' get slammed? Is that how you see our job? Or is it OK to profile a superstar athlete even if we didn't uncover any dirt? Tiger Woods is someone who doesn't give interviews, so it's newsworthy to hear him talk.'

"I asked Fager about a comment Mike Wallace reportedly made before a group of ESPN personnel regarding the Woods piece. Wallace noted that Woods is very private, and went on to say he thought 'probably some concessions were made' for '60 Minutes' to land the interview. 'You didn't see a heck of a lot of his wife, last night,' said Wallace. 'The concession was, look, 'I'm going to be more candid with you, Ed Bradley, than I've ever been in public before. Why? Because I'm going to get an opportunity to tell about my [charity] foundation.' I think that's fine.'

"Fager said the program was indeed unable to talk to Woods' wife, but that did not mean the piece was not worth doing. 'We wanted to talk to his wife,' said Fager. 'And he didn't want his wife to be interviewed, or she didn't want to be interviewed. But do we say 'forget it' because she wants to remain more private? Why? I think it would have been better for the story, we wish we had been able to meet her and talk to her, but do you say, 'OK we're not going to do the story?'''

And in the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished department, Slate's Jack Shafer tells the NYT:

"I'm canceling because the redesign of your Web site, which you unveiled yesterday, bests the print edition by such a margin I've decided to pocket the annual $621.40 I currently spend on home delivery.

"Oh, that's not to say that I find the Web version superior in every regard. For one thing, if I give up the print Times I'll have to find other morning bathroom reading. I'll miss dividing the paper into its respective sections, hording the best sections and distributing the leavings to my family. I'll also long for the big J&R ads that run on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. But seeing as I already read huge chunks of your newspaper online, sometimes with the print version in my lap, I might as well go all the way. Online better fits the way I live and work. Your spiffy new design is the tipping point I've been waiting for, and I'm convinced it will ease my transition to a paperless newspaper."

I don't think that's quite the reaction the Times was looking for.