Well, That Didn't Take Long

Driving home today, I was astonished to hear on NPR that the House Republicans, after having all but accepted Number One DeLay Sock Puppet Dennis Hastert's promotion of Number Two Sock Puppet David Dreier to be Hot Tub's placeholder, suddenly revolted and went for the logical choice, Roy Blunt of Missouri. I just LOVED how the NPR people danced around why Dreier was dumped for Blunt. "He was selected by Speaker Hastert, but ran into opposition from conservative House Republicans" was essentially what they said. Translation: 1) We 'Publicans ain't a-gonna have no faggit as our Whip, even if he's jest a placeholder for Hot Tub Tom! 2) By dumping Faggit Placeholder for The Supremely Corrupt But Definitely Hetero Blunt, we are admitting that DeLay's chances of survivin' this are slim and none -- and Slim just lef' town. David Brooks essentially confirmed that DeLay is toast in his little tête-a-tête with E.J. Dionne on NPR this afternoon. As Atrios says,

David Brooks was on NPR, and he's a reliable peddler of a certain strand of Republican information. Things we learned: Bush never really got along with DeLay, conservative Republicans have come to believe that DeLay only wants more and doesn't have any genuine conservative principles (whatever they are), everyone just loves Blunt. Whatever the truth of any of these things, the fact that Brooks is peddling these storylines says that they're pushing him out permanently.

Expect to see DeLay quietly resign, oh, sometime before New Year's Day. I'm picking Christmas Eve, myself. He'll want to do it at a time when the media are looking the other way even more than usual. Oh, and as for Roy Blunt: He'd better not get too comfy in Hot Tub's chair.

'Rep. Blunt and his staff have close connections to uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is the subject of criminal and congressional probes.'