Actually, I do believe the article, mainly because it just rings true.
If someone can convince me that Bush likes and respects DeLay, I'm all ears. But I'm not holding my breath.
Amazing how all the Anti-Goverment types all all excited about the Abramoff scandal seem so desperate to give Delay a free ride for his ties to Abramoff. At the same time they are VERY careful to make sure the Bush Justice Department gets NO credit for breaking this open by going after Abramoff. Why is that?
2. The President has had DeLay with him at numerous appearances, both during the campaign and after.
3. Newsmax likes stirring up trouble among conservatives. They often exagerrate or misquote stories in order to get everyone all up in arms. I usually ignore their stories. This one caught my eye because I figured there would be a lot of people who took the bait, and you are one of them.
I guess you will never truly know until Bush gives Delay a Presidential Pardon if he is convicted of a money laundering crime in the Texas courts.
Again, I say, Bush is no dummy. He knows what a good job Delay has done with keeping the Congress together on votes the administration wanted. This has not been the case lately since Delay has been out of leadership position. This is the exact result the DemocRATs wanted when they wrongly indicted Delay in the first place. The GOP is nuts to have that indictment rule in the first place. The DemocRATs don't have it for their people. That GOP rule that a person has to step down from leadership if only indicted is nuts. It only encourages DemocRATS to bring on frivolous indictments against GOP members of Congress and ties GOP hands of doing the same to the DemocRATS.
No one can convince you unless you're open to it. However, the following quote from the article is attributed to the President. I can all but guarantee you that it is a phony simply because GWB doesn't talk this way. He certainly wouldn't do so to "an Oval Office visitor." Furthermore, the "quote" -- a single sentence -- obviously has no context to it. If it was said, what was said before and after, and by whom?
"I can't believe I had to do robocalls for him," the President said bitingly to an Oval Office visitor, writes the magazine.
If this unnamed visitor even exists, notice that TIME has not even applied the usual obtuse clues to his or her identity, such as "an official," "a White House official," "a source close to the White House" -- that sort of thing.
People don't just visit the Oval Office. They sure as heck don't just visit the Oval Office and, wham, out of the blue have the President of the United States blurt out something critical of another elected official.