The Cut and Run Republican
Belief:
Atheism and Diversity: Is It Wrong For Atheists To Convert Believers?
Greta Christina
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Don't Fear the Deficit Bogeyman
John Miller
DrugReporter:
The War on Weed: Marijuana Is Basically Harmless -- The Monumentally Stupid Drug War Is Not
Jim Hightower
Environment:
White House Garden Won't Make Up for Obama's Nomination of Pesticide Lobbyist for US Chief Agriculture Negotiator
Jill Richardson
Food:
Don't Be Scared of Food: Are We Being Needlessly Hysterical About Food Safety?
David E. Gumpert
Health and Wellness:
47,000 Women Could Die As a Result of the New Mammogram Guidelines
George Lakoff
Immigration:
Republican Playbook on Immigration Debate Long on Emotions, Short on Facts
Mary Giovagnoli
Media and Technology:
The Memory Scrub About Why Ft. Hood Happened Is Almost Complete ... If It Weren't for Archives
Mark Ames
Movie Mix:
Disney Apocalypse: Why 2012 Sucks
Alexander Zaitchik
Politics:
White House's Ties to Health Care Industry Deeper Than Visitor Records Show
Daniela Perdomo
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Why Can't We Look Away From Sarah Palin?
Vanessa Richmond
Rights and Liberties:
Whatever Happened to the CIA Black Sites?
David Corn
Sex and Relationships:
Hot Mormon Muffins and Models for Jesus: What's With All the Sexy Christians?
Liz Langley
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Poseidon's Financial Shell Game: Why Is a Private Desalination Plant Asking for Public Money?
Peter Gleick
World:
Is Obama Following in the Footsteps of Bill Clinton?
Jeff Cohen
In an interview with Time magazine's Mike Allen yesterday, Tom DeLay, "arguably the most powerful Republican in Congress," announced that he would resign from the House of Representatives and not run for reelection. The wicked witch may be dead, but his comet-tail of Republican corruption is alive and well.
When it comes to Tom DeLay, even resigning isn't what it appears to be. By declaring his residency to be Virginia, instead of just dropping out of the race, DeLay is playing a little statutory footsie in the hope of clearing the way for state Republican officials to name another Republican candidate to face Democrat Nick Lampson. Lampson, a former House member, lost his seat in a redistricting engineered by, you guessed it, Tom DeLay.
According to the Time interview, the former majority leader was taking one for the team:
"And although I felt, I feel that I could have won the race, I just felt like I didn't want to risk the seat and that I can do more on the outside of the House than I can on the inside right now. I want to continue to fight for the conservative cause. I want to continue to work for a Republican majority."The Republican's abrupt and cowardly resignation is more redolent of a man running from the law than of a team player taking his lumps. As Melissa McEwan put it, quoting from the Washington Post, "DeLay failed to mention that his decision may have less to do with a selfless interest in fighting 'for the conservative cause,' and more to do with, uh, this:
The decision came just three days after his former deputy chief of staff, Tony C. Rudy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and corruption charges, telling federal prosecutors of a criminal enterprise being run out of DeLay's leadership offices."Rudy's demise is only the latest of DeLay's top aides and associates facing legal issues -- many of whom are also powerful players in the GOP infrastructure.
Three individuals, eight corporations and two political action committees connected to DeLay have been indicted as a result of the probe. In addition, the government's top procurement official, David Safavian, was arrested in September for obstructing a criminal investigation into uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close DeLay ally. Abramoff himself is under criminal investigation for defrauding Indian tribes and was indicted for wire fraud in Florida in a separate case.One of DeLay's proudest accomplishments, the K-Street Project, is essentially a campaign to, as John Nichols put it "formalize links between campaign giving, lobbying and legislating." Nicholas Confessore provides a more detailed explanation of his tactics:
In 1995, DeLay famously compiled a list of the 400 largest PACs, along with the amounts and percentages of money they had recently given to each party. Lobbyists were invited into DeLay's office and shown their place in "friendly" or "unfriendly" columns. ("If you want to play in our revolution," DeLay told the Washington Post, "you have to live by our rules.") Another was to oust Democrats from trade associations, what DeLay and Norquist dubbed "the K Street Strategy."Here's another exchange from the Time interview that positively wilts after the preceding passage:
TIME: Have you ever done anything unethical?
DeLay: No.
TIME: Since you left Baylor University, say, have you done anything immoral?
DeLay: No. Oh! (laughs) Are you kidding? Everybody does some things -- we're all sinners.Indeed.
It's DeLay's House. DeLay's Republican D.C. 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.His political action committee had donated money to 241 out of 246 Republicans in the House, he installed a patsy as Speaker of the House, "but," writes The Nation's John Nichols, "DeLay's crudest dismantling of democracy will be little mentioned today, just as it was barely noted at the time that he brought the hammer down."
Evan Derkacz is AlterNet's associate editor and writer of Peek, the blog of blogs.
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »
You've chosen to turn comments off for the entire site. Would you like to turn them back on?
Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.