Now We Know

Posted by jesselee
Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 8:22 PM

Now we know where most Republicans stand, including the White House and the NRCC. They care about nothing but money and power. It's not complicated.

trevino at RedState spares himself this self-condemnation:

Pride goeth.

Cross-posted at tacitus.org.

"Conservative leaders across the country are working now to make sure that any politician who hopes to have conservative support in the future had better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay."

-- Morton Blackwell, 31 March 2005

Good call, Morton. Now that the indictment of the erstwhile House Majority Leader is an accomplished fact, the wisdom of chaining the conservative movement to Tom DeLay is apparent even to the most fervent of the true believers. The fall of Tom DeLay is not merely a parable of hubris in one man: it is the tale of ego begetting ill-judgment in the conservative movement at large.

The pity is that Republicans who care more about their party than about the cult of personality attendant to its key figures have long warned of this day. We knew all along that Tom DeLay was a bully -- ask the Heritage Foundation about his penchant for petty grudges. We knew all along that he was, on a fundamental level, unprincipled -- ask him about the fat in the Federal budget. We knew all along that he was mostly interested in power for its own sake -- recall, please, that he sought a House rules change to protect his leadership position in this very circumstance. And we knew that if it came to an indictment, it would be the end.

Our task, then, was to make it the end for him, and not the Republican House majority or the conservative movement in power. In this, we failed. It is not a failure we were forced into: it is one we embraced, and hence one we deserve.

What of the charges against him? His antagonist, Ronnie Earle, is a Democratic hack and a dishonest prosecutor. The probability is that Tom DeLay will be acquitted of the single charge against him, and rightly so. On a legal level, he is almost certainly guilty of nothing more than a poor choice of friends. This, though, is politics: he's done. And being done, a man who truly has the best interests of conservatism at heart would have stepped down to save the movement he purported to love. Tom DeLay has not, and that tells us all we need to know about what he values most.

Plenty of links in there that I didn't take. Incidentally, that Washington Times quote is one that I did my best to make famous, and this diary speaks to some of those same questions which are indeed central to the dynamics at play.

But let's stick to other issues for now. Obviously trevino's sipped a little kool-aid despite his above-average rationality - there's not a shred of evidence that Earle is a "Democratic hack." As for whether the charge against DeLay holds up, there would probably be two requirements. 1) Jurisdictional issues do not intrude. Given that the Grand Jury seemed to be quite conscious of that requirement, my guess is that hurdle will be met. 2) It has to be shown he was aware of the transaction alleged to be money-laundering. As Kevin Drum notes, this would probably take some testimony. But that's all would take. One of the three indicted TRMPAC workers willing to strike a deal and fess up to a conversation they had with DeLay. And for folks like trevino thinking he just fell in with the wrong crowd, explain this: neither DeLay nor any of his supporters have ever denounced what Ellis and Colyandro did. Nobody has ever claimed they were rogue operatives.

Quite the contrary:

LWI: LOBBYING WHILE INDICTED John Colyandro’s criminal indictments have not prevented the ex-director of Tom DeLay’s Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC) from landing contracts to lobby the government that he is accused of illegally helping to elect. Rather, a Travis County grand jury’s criminal charges against Colyandro last fall for allegedly breaking a state prohibition on corporate contributions may have actually boosted his lobby stature. An alternative explanation is that Team DeLay is taking care of a man who knows too much.

And as for that potential squealer, I nominate Warren RoBold:

Professional fundraiser Warren RoBold of Maryland was indicted at the same time as Ellis and Colyandro. RoBold is accused of raising illegal corporate cash for TRMPAC. He says he violated no laws. RoBold lawyer Rusty Hardin of Houston said RoBold was not invited to participate in the legal defense fund. Ellis and Colyandro are mounting a joint defense, but RoBold is handling his case separately.

"When we checked into it (the defense fund) we were told there were no more funds," Hardin said.

That could fit a scenario in which he had already given up the goods, or it could have been enough of a slight to make him turn as a result. Let's not forget an essential truth here: Tom DeLay's greatest hope was that these men would stand trial and risk decades in jail to protect him. That's a hard bargain as it is, but when you spit in somebody's face that way, it gets to be downright herculean. Of course we also know that Scanlon has been looking for a way to cooperate with his prosecutors as well, although we've seen little to indicate he was knowledgable of the TRMPAC wheelings and dealings.

We shall see, we shall see. Much more in days to come of course...

HUGE UPDATE: Ellis taken care of too. And how!

The Associated Press reported that Rep. Roy Blunt’s federal PAC, Rely On Your Beliefs Fund, paid Jim Ellis’s firm, the J W Ellis Company, $3,000 a month from May 2003 to January 2005, and $4,000 a month from February 2005 to at least July 2005. The payment for June and July was made in August, the last month covered by disclosure reports. The payments were identified as political consulting and fundraising services. The total payment for those months was $88,000.

AP story here. Now think about the fact that Brown was taken on as a consultant. Hush money, the GOP way.

UPDATE II: Roy Temple on Blunt's long ties to Ellis. While we're at it, Think Progress on DeLay's rather sad appearance on Hardball tonight.

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