Posted on 04/07/2005 8:53:53 AM PDT by Matchett-PI
The media's out for DeLay's scalp
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I'm not crazy about doing this, either, but I have to. This media pile-on today, circling the wagons around Tom DeLay, the New York Times and Washington Post.
Let's look at the Washington Post story. It's by Jeffrey Smith and James Grimaldi.
"A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements. DeLay reported that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization. But interviews with those involved in planning DeLay's trip say the expenses were covered by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that also paid for an intensive $440,000 lobbying campaign. It is unclear precisely how the money was transferred from the Bahamian-registered company to the nonprofit. The expense-paid trip by DeLay and four of his staff members cost $57,238, according to records filed by his office. During his six days in Moscow, he played golf--"
He played golf in Moscow? You can play golf in Moscow? "--met with Russian church leaders and talked to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, a friend of Russian oil and gas executives associated with the lobbying effort. DeLay also dined with the Russian executives and two Washington-based registered lobbyists for the Bahamian-registered company, sources say. One of those lobbyists was Jack Abramoff, who is now at the center of a federal influence-peddling and corruption probe related to his representation of Indian tribes."
There's a picture, and the story goes on and on and on.
There's a picture here, too, and I'm not going to pretend that I know the laws and rules, but I do know a hatchet job when I see it, folks, and this is a hatchet job.
There is a photo accompanying this story and who do you see who is not mentioned under the other photo as being in it? Alexander Haig is in this photo. All the so-called guilty are in this photo.
The suspicious, mysterious characters that supposedly lined DeLay's pockets are all in this photo and Alexander Haig is in this photo, but Alexander Haig's name does not appear in the caption under the photo. DeLay is not in the picture, either.
Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer paid the biggest FEC fine ever for violating spending limits in his spending campaign. You don't read about that. [Link below]
Hillary Clinton's California fund-raiser has been indicted for underreporting money raised for her campaign, and lying about the sources of the money to violate spending limits. [Link below] And we hear nothing further about that, and we don't get stories about either Schumer or Hillary being tainted by virtue of their association with people who have been indicted. In Schumer's case, he paid the biggest FEC fine ever.
Nancy Pelosi's aide, we just learned thanks to the Washington Times, had the story yesterday, he went on a junket to Spain for several days, paid for a group that received over a million dollars in federal grants thanks to Pelosi after donating something like a thousand or $2,000 to her PAC, and the head of this group also contributed money to her PAC. [Link below] So where are the front-page stories on these ethics questions? They're nowhere to be found.
Now wait, don't misunderstand. This is not my attempt to exonerate DeLay by saying, "The other guys do it too." Don't confuse me with that. I'm just trying to illustrate that this is a media hatchet job here.
The only person alluded to as having any guilt in anything in this Washington Post story is Jack Abramoff, one of those lobbyists: "Jack Abramoff, who is now at the center of a federal influence-peddling and corruption probe."
He's the only guy in this whole story, including DeLay, that is referenced as having broken any laws.
So because I'm not an expert on the laws and the rules on all this, I scoured websites today in feverish show prep, and I came cross David Frum's diary at National Review Online, and it's very good. [linked at end]
We have an inside-the-Beltway guy who is objective enough to see this, and here's basically what he says.
"Seems to me that this morning's front-page attack on Tom DeLay by the Washington Post isn't a story about Tom DeLay at all. The story makes clear that DeLay did nothing wrong.
In 1997, he took a trip to Russia paid for (as far as he had any reason to be aware) by the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas. The Center's president, Amy Ridenour, even came along for the trip. The Post describes DeLay's activities on the trip thus:
'During his six days in Moscow, he played golf, met with Russian church leaders and talked to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin...' As if DeLay flew to Moscow in order to hit the links. In fact, the United States had some heavy decisions to make about aid to Russia in 1997 and 1998, and it's not surprising that the then number-three man in the House of Representatives would want to see the situation for himself.
It now turns out that the Center [And this is the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas] defrayed the cost with some doubtful donations from lobbyists, including Jack Abramoff, now the central figure in a major federal investigation of corruption and influence-peddling. Abramoff was representing Russian oil and gas interests with a special interest in influencing US policy toward Russia. Abramoff also joined DeLay and Ridenour on the mission.
"These dots can certainly be connected in a way that presents an ugly picture of Jack Abramoff's activities. It could easily be suggested that he was trying to circumvent bans on lobbyist-paid travel in order to gain access to a powerful member of the House of Representatives, just the latest in a long list of unsettling allegations about the longtime conservative activist turned multimillionaire lobbyist.
But the Post is not satisfied with bagging Abramoff.
They want DeLay too, or rather, they want DeLay more.
Instead of seeing DeLay as Abramoff's target, they want to insinuate that Abramoff was DeLay's tool.
And that case has not even begun to be made.
Meanwhile, by amazing coincidence, the Times this morning also offers a big attack feature on DeLay.
The Times story makes the point that DeLay's campaign and political action committees - ie, his contributor-funded organizations, not his taxpayer-funded office - employed his wife and daughter at various times, paying them some $4,000 a month each.
This practice is not illegal nor is it, alas, even all that uncommon, as the Times itself acknowledges in its story.
But while we're on the topic of doubtful practices, can we notice this, please?
The Times story is sourced to - and is packed full of quotations from - a series of groups whistled up by George Soros for almost the exclusive purpose of attacking DeLay. (You can read some of the details here.) [Get hot link at Rush's above-linked web site].
Maybe the Times should be alerting its readers to the true identity of those sources of these shocked-and-appalled quotations?
Or even balancing this bought-and-paid-for expertise with comments from some genuinely disinterested and impartial observers?"
But no, this they don't do.
So, yeah, there are these two stories both trying to make DeLay out to be intimately involved in corruption and neither story makes the case.
In fact, this little business about DeLay paying some people, family and staff. The figure the Times uses is $500,000 over a number of years.
If you do the division, what he was paying these people that added up to $500,000 over a number of years would indicate they're underpaid on an annual basis.
Something like $40,000 a year or whatever it was they were paid. It's absurd.
But the message has gone out: Get DeLay, and they're not going to stop until they can do it, just mark my words on this.
I predicted this, although not against DeLay.
I thought that they would be hammering Bush, trying to impeach him, and that may still happen if Bush does something they think they could make that move on, but there's so much going on here.
They still want to get even for what they think Newt did to Jim Wright and what we all did to Clinton with impeachment, and absent a Democrat agenda, absent a list of items that they stand resolutely for, and go to the country and say, "This is why we ought to be running the country," because they don't have that, they have to run around now and they're trying to get the hammer and they've been trying to get the hammer for a long time, and I think what the ultimate objective here is to wear down DeLay's colleagues.
I think they want the Republican leadership to get nervous and antsy over all the criticism, because they don't like it.
They don't like being criticized by the post or the New York Times and the leadership will eventually say, "This is bogging us down, it's all going to make the news, what we're doing here legislatively is not making the news, Tom, you've got to fall on the sword." That's what they hope will happen with this, or worse.
But I just wanted to alert you to it because it's being talked about.
It's all over the media as though it's the biggest story come down the pike in years, and it isn't.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, folks, you just have to love the NRA. Representative Tom DeLay pummeled by Democrats for alleged ethics lapses, not violations, lapses, will be the keynote speaker at the NRA's annual convention, begins April 15th in Houston. With an estimated 40,000 attendees and over 350 exhibits, this year's annual meetings and exhibits promises to be among the best in NRA history, the NRA announced.
If Dingy Harry shows up, you know what he'll come back and say? "Boy, I couldn't believe all the guns there at the NRA convention."
Here's the latest on DeLay. Republican House leaders said today that they know this series of attacks in the Washington Post, the New York Times, are bogus, they back DeLay, the NRA having him as their big speaker at their annual event.
And conservatives are now joining together to back him, except certain conservative pundits who cut and run inside the Beltway.
He's going to be honored at a dinner next month by scores of conservative groups as well.
So I doubt that the effort by the press to cause the Republican leadership to cut and run will succeed, but that's what they're aiming at.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Articles... (Washington Post: A 3rd DeLay Trip Under Scrutiny) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28319-2005Apr5.html
(NY Times: Political Groups Paid Two Relatives of House Leader) (must register to read)
(NRO: David Frum's Diary) http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum-diary.asp
Cybercast News Service: Rep. DeLay Will Keynote NRA Convention Next Week) http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=%5CCulture%5Carchive%5C200504%5CCUL20050406c.html
I think we should reverse this on the Democrats.
We should target pelosit and radicalize her into the public eye. She can not deny that she is a socialist.
As for the undertaker reid, he is the successor to the king of boring algore.
Se #6,18,19 & 20
I think the indians were surrounding the wagons (which of course were circled... : )
Darn, beaten to the punch again....
Negative? No, just because I'm not Polly-Anna like you doesn't make me negative.
The news media AKA the press is an organ of the State. As soon as the press was granted Constitutional protection it became part of the State. It is as much part of the State as is the FedGov.
No one calls those on the right a "movement".
These Delay trolls are getting boring now, and over the top, which is a good way to spot them.
You can tell when their talking points use words like "corruption".
This is the stupidest argument I've ever seen on FR. Ask Chris Berman what "circling the wagons" means. The Buffalo Bills used to do it all the time. To face adversity. To Protect themselves from a better team. Those Injuns weren't circling "wagons", they were circling (if you will) their HORSES.
I was kidding with him.
I know. It wasn't you I was picking on.
You got it!
Media Ignores Rampant Harry Reid Corruption But Goes Nuts Over Martinez, DeLay
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