Thursday
April 14 2005
THE TOM DELAY UPROAR: Maura
Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times writes that "Republicans
say a crucial factor in whether DeLay rides out the storm is whether
he retains the president's support." This is bunk. It's also
an attempt to portray Scott
McClellan's comments yesterday as more important (and also
less favorable to DeLay) than they really were.
First, just
as a practical matter, President Bush is not going to run away
from Tom Delay - though he's also not going to run and wrap his
arms around him right now either. The President will almost certainly
keep his distance and let things play out.
More importantly,
however, Reynolds misses how the process works. If Tom DeLay is
going to fall, it's going to happen from the bottom up, not the
top down. In other words, DeLay's survival depends almost entirely
on whether members of the Republican conference in the House stick
with him or not.
At this point
(putting aside Chris Shays for the obvious reasons) that is something
that remains to be seen. As Mike Allen writes in this morning's
Washington
Post:
"People
who are working in support of DeLay's position said the next
several days would be critical, as leaders wait to see whether
any other House Republicans call for his resignation."
In an
interview yesterday with editors and reporters with the Washington
Times, DeLay claimed his support in the House was solid.
Right
now, this looks to be true.
One of the
reasons DeLay's support is holding is because most GOP House members
know that many of the charges against him are either completely
bogus (like the one about having family members on the payroll
which, as the Los
Angeles Times reports this morning, a number of Democrats
and Republicans have done for years) or have been blown way out
of proportion.
Still, despite
DeLay's
press conference yesterday where he apologized for "inartful"
remarks about judges in the wake of the Terri Schiavo case, there
is still a great deal of hand wringing among GOP House members
over the way DeLay is handling the matter. They think he's being
too combative and too defensive, which only makes matters worse.
For example,
in yesterday's interview with the Washington Times DeLay
said he's been trying for weeks to present material to the House
Ethics Committee, but said that Democrats are refusing to convene
the committee to keep him from clearing his name. But as this
quote from a Senior Aide to Speaker Hastert appearing in today's
Chicago
Tribune demonstrates, even if DeLay's claim is true some members
question whether blaming partisanship is the right strategy:
"I'm
not sure why he doesn't lay it out, regardless of whether the
ethics committee ever meets or not," said the Hastert official,
who spoke on condition of not being identified.
"Take
whatever there is and say, `Here it is,'" the official
said. "You have to at one point say, `Here I am, here it
is, what's the question.'"
At this
point DeLay seems inclined to go the opposite course: hunker down
and try and ride out the storm. But Democrats are surely going
to milk DeLay's troubles for all they are worth and members of
the press seem more than willing to help keep the story alive.
An anonymous
Democratic staffer summed it up succinctly in the Houston
Chronicle this morning: "Tom DeLay is still an asset,
not a liability." If that balance sheet ever changes, DeLay
will be in trouble.
HEADLINE
BIAS: On a related note, here is a pop quiz. Listed below
are headlines from the four largest newspapers in the country
that ran atop stories of Tom Delay's press conference yesterday
where he apologized for his comments on judges in the wake of
the Schiavo case. Guess which one appeared on page one of The
New York Times:
"DeLay
Apologizes for Comments"
"Embattled
DeLay Says He's Sorry"
"DeLay
Tempers His Statements"
"DeLay
Asks House Panel to Review Judges"
You know
the bias is bad when it stands out like a sore thumb from the
Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the
Chicago Tribune. -
T. Bevan 10:45 am Link |
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