Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Mistah DeLay, He Dead
A few folks out there still think that Tom DeLay is going to be magically saved from harm by the Texas Legislature, which Tom DeLay is asking to step in and remove Ronnie Earle's authority to investigate DeLay. Well, if the Texas Lege is going to try and save DeLay's ass, they're going to have to move awfully fast to do it. And they show absolutely no signs of doing so. Here's a condensed version of what Kos had to say on this, back on March 30. The key point is that Ronnie Earle's third grand jury -- the one focusing on DeLay allies Tom Craddick (TX House Speaker) and the Texas Association of Business -- expires at the end of April, at which time indictments against Craddick and TAB are expected. Once that happens, Earle will convene his fourth grand jury, which will target Tom DeLay specifically. As Kos says, "Rumors are already flying that those already indicted are singing in exchange for more lenient sentences. No one wants to rot in jail for DeLay's sake." In other words: Mistah DeLay, he dead. That's why there is this big push amongst the smarter Republicans to publicly distance themselves from his doomed ass (hence the non-distancing distancing of the "we can't judge him before the facts are in but he must come clean and explain himself" line that Republicans like Gingrich and Santorum have been spouting). And that's why we have to keep reminding Americans that the very people who are now pretending to be oh-so-different from Tom DeLay are in fact his biggest allies. As I've said before, DeLay's a 500-pound shark on Ronnie Earle's 600-pound test line. He's thrashing, and hollering, and he can still bite your arm off if you're not careful, but he's eventually going to be hauled up and put on display on Ronnie Earle's dockside weigh scales.
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