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I don't think DeLay should be removed automatically if he is indicted.

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Hey, I don't either. It's much more fun to have him remain as leader if indicted. Think of it - every single story involving him as house leader will have descriptions such as:

"the recently-indicted Speaker"
"DeLay, who has been charged with..."

etc. etc. etc. - you get the idea. Every news story touching on DeLay will also mention he's charged with a crime - IF that's what happens (big IF).

EDIT to add: That means that Republicans will be faced with basically two choices: Deal with the fact that every piece of coverage of DeLay in his role also acts as a reminder that he's under indictment; OR have him play a quieter role, giving spokesperson role over to other Republicans, which kind of negates DeLay's usefulness.

That's the trouble with having power. You get what you wish for and then sometimes you have to live with it.

[ November 22, 2004, 01:28 PM: Message edited by: sndrake ]

Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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Well, there's at least one news story out that says DeLay won't be indicted, which, by my interpretation, makes the frantic changing of the rules even more foolish-looking. No faith in the grand jury OR DeLay.

Nice column by Chicago columnist Clarence Page on this, published in the Houston Chronicle:

House leadership makes old Chicago pols look good

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House leadership makes old Chicago pols look good
By CLARENCE PAGE
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle News Services

Could this be the beginning of the end for "The Hammer"? House Republicans have rewritten their ethics rules so Majority Leader Tom DeLay won't have to resign if he is indicted.

This big favor to the ethically challenged Sugar Land Republican gives new meaning to Mark Twain's description of Congress as the "distinctly native American criminal class." Somehow I don't think this is what most of the Republican voters had in mind who told exit pollsters on Election Day that "moral values" was their most important issue.

Republicans passed their indictment rule back in 1993, modeling it after a similar Democratic caucus rule, in a feeble attempt to embarrass powerful Democrats like then-Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois. He eventually was convicted of mail fraud.

Like many others in Chicago at the time, I remember his case well. After handily winning the Democratic re-nomination, which usually is tantamount to election in Chicago, Rosty's indictment came down and voters booted him out of office.

In fact, the voters, in other words, preferred a guy hardly anyone knew, Michael Patrick Flanagan, 32, a Republican attorney who said he decided to run while throwing darts with some buddies in a North Side pub. He lasted one term in office.

I point all of this out because, for all of the cheap shots Chicago voters have taken for their high tolerance for corruption, I'm happy to report that they appear to have higher standards than House Republicans.

Yet, it is significant to note that one of those who pushed the indictment rule was, yes, that alleged paragon of virtue Tom DeLay, who has been cited by the House Ethics Committee for three violations this year and for another in 1999.

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Besides, one wonders, what's happened to law-and-order House conservatives, now that one of their own is getting the big prosecutorial probe? I point all of this out not to say DeLay is guilty. Everyone is innocent, as I once heard a Chicago politician say, until all of their appeals are exhausted. But I do find it amusing and informative that Republicans are so much more respectful of DeLay's right to be presumed innocent than they have been of Democrats in similar circumstances.

In fact, one hears echos in DeLay's defenders of Bill Clinton's defenders against Kenneth Starr's Whitewater/Monicagate investigations. I don't recall much innocent-until-proved guilty compassion coming from the Republican House impeachment managers back then. But, that was then. As Tom Wolfe once observed, if a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is just a conservative who's been arrested.

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Chicago has some great columnists. One of my favorites, John Kass, also wrote a column on DeLay. He compared him with Clinton, and made it clear he doesn't care for either man very much. Kass has political views that are more conservative than mine, but he tends to treat dishonesty and corruption with the same amount of vigor, regardless of the political ideology of the public figure in question. It's one of the reasons I look forward to Kass's columns.

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