Posted on 09/30/2005 7:59:41 PM PDT by weegee
Maybe Ronnie Earle has the goods on Tom DeLay and maybe not.
I'm perfectly content to let a jury consider the evidence and decide.
But if a jury does convict DeLay, I'm proposing a new nickname for the man who was, until Wednesday, one of the most powerful figures in national politics.
Forget "The Hammer."
He will be "Scarface."
As in Al Capone.
The connection?
Capone was a monumental tough guy who ran gambling, prostitution, protection, bootlegging and other rackets in Chicago — only to be brought down on lower level charges that he cheated on his income taxes.
DeLay is a monumental tough guy who has led the effort to bind national government even more tightly to corporate money and lobbyists than it already was.
How tough is he? When the bipartisan House ethics committee unanimously chastised DeLay for the third time last year, its Republican chairman was summarily replaced.
Political knee-capping Politically speaking, he was knee-capped.
DeLay has pioneered new levels of bringing money to bear on Washington politics. He has led the way for the expansion of the lobby, and for tying it more closely to Republican objectives.
His national political action committee, Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC), has raised more than $12.5 million since 1998. He has been chastised by the House ethics committee for allowing the impression that large contributions might buy legislative favors.
But more to the point regarding Wednesday's indictment is what DeLay did with ARMPAC's baby brother, TRMPAC, or Texans for a Republican Majority.
Raising $600,000 in corporate money, the DeLay associates who ran TRMPAC partnered with the Texas Association of Business (which raised at least $1.7 million in corporate contributions) to win control of the Texas House of Representatives in 2002.
Most egregious 'crime' DeLay, who made no secret of his design in setting up TRMPAC, wanted a Republican majority and speaker who would take the very rare step of redrawing congressional district lines mid-decade to gain more Republican seats.
Through polling, interviewing candidates and getting commitments from them, and carefully targeted mailings and advertisements supporting favored candidates or attacking their opponents, TRMPAC and TAB succeeded.
In other words, corporate money in massive amounts used in a handful of carefully chosen races changed the makeup of the Legislature.
What's more, many of the corporations who gave to TRMPAC were clearly doing it not because they cared about Texas elections, but because they wanted DeLay's favors in Washington.
The most embarrassing example: A Topeka-based executive of Westar Energy Inc. wrote an e-mail to a vice-president asking why they had given $25,000 to TRMPAC.
The answer, in an e-mail turned up by a federal investigation, was that DeLay's "agreement is necessary before the House conferees can push the language we have in place" in a bill important to Westar.
But the most egregious "crime" committed in the course of DeLay's single-minded pursuit of a legislature that would give him his extraordinary redistricting was what it did to Austin.
It may be hard to remember five years later, but then-Governor George W. Bush ran for the presidency promising to make Washington more like Austin: a political atmosphere in which leaders and members of both parties could work together in an atmosphere of respect, as Bush did with the late Bob Bullock, the powerful Democratic lieutenant governor.
It was a naive notion. The dynamics of Washington are much more polarizing than a state house.
But what DeLay did was the reverse. He made Austin much more like Washington, a place full of bitterness and devoid of trust, especially in the TRMPAC House.
There is a direct link between the TRMPAC success and the Legislature's failure to even approach solving the school funding crisis.
This is the real "crime." But you can't indict someone for subverting a culture, for crippling an institution.
No, if strongman DeLay goes down, it will be for a low-level felony involving the application of a measly $190,000.
You can write to Rick Casey at P.O. Box 4260, Houston, TX 77210, or e-mail him at rick.casey@chron.com.
Accidental Houston Chronicle memo admits to tainting the news with political agenda
The following memo was accidentally posted on the Houston Chronicle website last Thursday morning for a couple of hours. It is an internal memo between the editorial page writers instructing a massive year long propaganda campaign to push a light rail referendum through next november. The memo was removed upon discovery but not before many people read it. The Houston Chronicle also printed a correction stating it had been accidentally posted, but not what it was about.
The timing, language and approach of the paper's editorials would, of course, be the decision of the Editorial Board. But I suggest that they could be built upon and informed by a news-feature package with an equally specific focus: Telling the story of rail here by examining the long term relationship of the two key players in the local transit wars -- Rep. Tom DeLay and former Mayor Bob Lanier. For better or worse, (mostly worse, I would argue) no two have had a more significant impact on transit decisions here. Our readers deserve to know how they've operated to fund and promote an anti-rail agenda for the past two decades. This would be vital information for voters as they come to their decision on rail. It would also be highly entertaining read.
Hooooouston
Why stop at Capone? Why not compare him to Hitler, who was the most notorious Republican in the past hundred years. Or better yet, why not make the comparison to Lucifer himself, who we all know is the patron saint of Republicans.
Where do these people get off doing the kind of thing? I am up to here, (gesturing) with liberals and their hypocrisy!
Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that we look the other way for him just because he is a conservative Republican or an extremely effective fund raiser - it's just that in a criminal prosecution facts matter. And right now there are essentially zero critical facts that would allow one to even guess at hi involvement in the charged crime. I hope his attorney files a speedy trial motion and this shakes out before February of 2006.
Scarface?
[imagines the Hammer dressed up in his old pest-control uniform, introducing Democrats to his "little friend" the spray canister]
Personally I think DeLay is guilty.
There's a reporter for the Dallas Morning News who used the same analogy. Liberal reporters obviously have been talking to one another. Ironically, they hate DeLay because he has learned to beat the Democrats at their own game.
Someone as corruptas George Soros openly tried to buy a presidential election and that didn't bother them, because he is one of them. Only Republican money is corrupt. The Soros and the Buffets and the Rockefellers et al can throw billions into the mix trying to control the political process, ansd that is OK.
"Will DeLay be defeated like Capone? "
Well, at least its reassuring that the local paper is keeping an open mind. /sarcasm
Guilty of what? Certainly not of breaking the law he is accused of breaking.
We're all guilty of something son. The question is of what?
Blanco is already this year's "Scarface".
Of what???
The never blinked when the Chinese Communist government gave Bill Clinton campaign donations. The Democrats just "gave it back" after the election. Nice loan.
Rush mentioned on his show today that the Democrats sent $75,000 to Washington DC (and back) the same way the Republicans did. I've not seen that mentioned anywhere else. Anyone have a source?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Ok then let me rephrase. I don't think he is ethical.
Not in my book. And I have rephrased my statement from guilty to unethical.
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