The time has come for the what’s left of the DC power apparatus to put some distance between itself and Tom DeLay, and some are doing a better job of it than others. At the White House things aren’t going so well at all.
First, there’s the problem of Scott McLellan categorically denying any connection between Abramoff and the president, instantly setting off another great DC photo hunt. Is it possible to raise at least $100,000 on behalf of B/C2004, attend three WH Hannukah bashes and somehow fail to meet the president? At least Scotty hedged that the president ‘has no recollection’ of meeting Abramoff.
Then there’s Tom DeLay, the erstwhile majority leader tail spinning into the terminal stages of Joementum. You can’t hardly airbrush out a guy on whose behalf you’ve just broken your writ-in-stone policy of never commenting on ongoing investigations (it prejudices them you know):
“No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States,” McClellan said, echoing his two-year-old position on the case. “And I think the way to be most helpful is to not get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation.”
President Bush said yesterday he is confident that former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) is innocent of money-laundering charges, as he offered strong support for several top Republicans who have been battered by investigations or by rumors of fading clout inside the White House.
Here you have two Texas born-agains, both of whom want you to think of them as beer-drinking regular guys while living conspicuously high on the hog. Four years into a particularly codependent relationship in which the prez lets DeLay pass any damn bill he pleases and DeLay keeps a tight lid on that thing that we used to call ‘oversight,’ you’d think that they’d practically qualify for domestic partner benefits.
I can think of a couple of ways that the White House might solve this problem, for example pointing out that what DeLay did with Abramoff was really fucking illegal and disgraces his office, Congress and everybody with the first name Tom or the last name DeLay. Maybe that’s too direct. You could think of others.
Here’s one approach that hadn’t occurred to me: why not explicitly acknowledge that the Bush clan, being born into privilege, reflexively looks down on anybody who has ever had to roll up his sleeves for a living?
When legal and ethical questions began spinning around House majority leader Tom DeLay last year, President George W. Bush was publicly supportive. Privately, though, he questioned his fellow Texan’s mojo. Bush had scored 10 points higher than DeLay in the Representative’s district in 2004, and that was only after Bush had recorded a telephone message to help rally local Republicans. “I can’t believe I had to do robocalls for him,” the President said bitingly to an Oval Office visitor. […]
Even before DeLay’s announcement that he would abdicate his leadership post, top Bush advisers tell TIME, the President’s inner circle always treated DeLay as a necessary burden. He may have had an unmatched grip on the House and Washington lobbyists, but DeLay is not the kind of guy — in background and temperament — the President feels comfortable with. Of the former exterminator, a Republican close to the President’s inner circle says, “They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He’s seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with.”
Basically, Tom’s the help. I don’t know about anybody else (well, I know about Steve Benen) but that actually makes DeLay look more sympathetic to me, at least compared with the snobbish prigs at the White House.
These guys are supposed to be good at marketing. The sheltered-child-of-privilege brand always hit a lot closer to the mark than the regular-guy-you’re-supposed-to-want-to-have-a-beer-with, but it makes for a pretty poor sales pitch. Maybe Paris Hilton gets polled a lot.
Snail
There’s only one “L” in poled, and frankly I don’t see what Paris Hilton’s sexual behavior has to do with this.
Skip
It amuses me that the Bush clan thinks it can high-hat anyone. They are tractor pull rejects compared to the Roosevelts.
Krista
An individual of true class does not think that anybody is “beneath” them.
Mr Furious
“They are tractor pull rejects compared to the Roosevelts.”
Bwah! Good one!
As far as kicking DeLay when he’s down? They are fucking crazy. Do they really think The Hammer doesn’t hear that shit? That he won’t hold a grudge? That he won’t drag every lasst person he can down with him?
Distance yourself from him? Fine. Personally insult him and anyone else who ever had to work for a living? Fucking braindead.
ppGaz
Well said.
Extremely well said.
The Other Steve
Depends, I guess. My Uncle was invited to a Whitehouse dinner back in the 1980s when Reagan was President. I’m sure he probably raised money for him, although I doubt it was in the $100k.
But a Whitehouse Dinner is like the President and 1,000 of his closest friends. My Uncle was sitting like 100 feet from REagan, and had no real chance to meet the President other than shaking his hand.
He did get to dine with Mr. T who was at his table. So perhaps that is the real treat. :-)
Pooh
Correct. For an example of what could happen witness the large knife being wielded at present by one Mr. N. Gingrich…
srv
Shrub outlaws anonymous trolling!
h/t crooksandiars
Krista
Shrub outlaws anonymous trolling!
It’s not true. The media has just been DougJ’d. :)
Lines
Other than Abramoff promising and coming through with multiple face-to-face visitations with the President for major donors, no, we have no idea who he is.
Paul Wartenberg
This just in on the cnn.com:
The court of criminal appeals refused to dismiss the charges or otherwise send the charges to a lower court for an immediate trial (DeLay wanted this done quickly so he could resume GOP leadership duties, which is now a moot point: he now wants it done before the March primary so he can try to retain his seat (uh, right)).
Another court is considering a separate issue on the charge itself, so this surely isn’t over. The long winter just got longer for Toxic Tom. (insert massive schadenfreude grin here)
Pooh
Does DeLay really think he’s coming back from this? Just, the audacity – you got caught, everybody knows you got caught, stop with the Alfred E. Newman already.
Sine.Qua.Non
One would think, apparently incorrectly, that just a little bit of that upper class education would have absorbed into Bush’s brain stem. Go figure. Snotty Texans and I have to live in this hellhole.
^5 Skip & Krista
DeLay is gone, gone, gone. Forever. Now- lets get Grover Norquist.
I’d jump up and down screaming yippee, but I don’t want to tick anyone off today. I’m too sick to deal with it or jump, or scream for that matter. My little fingers are even tired. All right, bitch and wine session over.
SRV: oh my GOSH!!! Thats! Crap… Krista – there is a CNET article about it. Really!
Tim F.
Two words: Elliot Abrams. Once he’s been pardoned and some time has gone by, they’ll find a place for him.
ppGaz
“Annoy and go to jail.”
Welp, okay, as long as Darrell is not my cellmate.
But serially, folks …. ba-ta-boom ….
WTF?
So, if my identity is known to John Cole, am I covered? Or do I have to reveal it publicly?
This is one strange law.
Sine.Qua.Non
Tim, you are causing me great and fulminating amounts of pain.
Krista
Sine – I was being facetious. I read the link. I was just thinking, though, how funny it would have been if the entire thing had been a hoax, masterminded by DougJ. He’ll have to watch his ass now…
Bob In Pacifica
The Bush clan goes back a long ways. The brush-clearing is an act. These people are rich, have been rich, and have represented the rich for a long time. Still, the suckers buy their hooey. The Walker Cup? That’s the same Walker family that Dubya comes from. We should all know by now that Prescott Bush was right in the middle of the Wall Street financing of Hitler. Any family that hobnobs with Nazis shouldn’t feel so uptight about being around exterminators, though.
The Other Steve
But but! The district Attorney is playing politics by trying to enforce the law!
Lines
This is just a further demonstration of the abuse of the Judiciary by the Democrats. They are throwing out random charges looking for one to stick. In this case, the Judge is playing along, but you guys just wait until it goes to court, it will easily display how corrupt the Democrats that made this charge really are.
Skip
” but you guys just wait until it goes to court, it will easily display how corrupt the Democrats that made this charge really are.”
But, I can’t keep track of “this charge.” There have been so many. We’ll honor your request, though and just wait, hoping you learn to fancy crow for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Lines
Did I just DougJ someone?
Otto Man
First of all, it’s not one judge, it’s nine. Second, they’re all Republicans. Third, they’re all elected Republicans.
So obviously, they ruled that the charges should stand because they really want the Democrats to win at the polls.
Otto Man
Damn, I thought I’d been Doug J’ed and walked into it all the same.
Stupid work is making my brain tired.
Skip
Eliot Abrams! I forgot about the Contra perjury man. It is really instructive to go to the Rockwell site and search for his old pal Chris Manion, and observe how wide the gap has grown between the neo and paleocons.
Then too, Abram’s pal Perle also lost a clearance once, as perhaps did Feith and Wurmser. Mr. McNulty may have some related news soon. That, at any rate, is the buzz in Georgetown.
trost
Let’s be real on the sourcing here. Who precisely is “a Republican close to the inner circle”? Ethical journalism uses anonymous sources to get information otherwise unavailable to the public, not to get snarky quotes.
Robbie
You can’t have a beer with so-called Mr. Regular Guy Bush because he is an alcoholic. I never understood the rationale for this common man feeling for Bush.
ppGaz
Just watched the sickning spectacle that Tom DeLay put on over the weekend … the scene on the steps with the adoring, clapping supplicants …. the gratuitous hugging and head shaking.
Honestly, this guy should go to jail just for being the most full-of-shit-full-of-himself motherfucker on earth. Corrupt money or no, DeLay is the worst case scenario of what can happen when you elect somebody to Congress.
You couldn’t make a sitcom about this guy, nobody would believe it.
Jesus. Amazing. Stupefying.
searp
The really depressing thing is that all this crap might tip 1% of the electorate. Much of it was obvious before the 04 election. I give you 2000 – in that election W was simply an empty suit, a not-al-gore.
The worst president in history got re-elected. Regrets? Thin beer.
ppGaz
That might explain why Mr. Bush received fewer votes than Mr. Gore.