Charles Madigan offers up one of the better and understated analysis of the Tom DeLay scandals.
Thus far, DeLay has been cheered by the House Republicans who love him and the largesse he has spread around, sort of backed by a timid White House, and resolute in claiming this is all a conspiracy cobbled together by the Democrats and the vile liberal media who love them.
Perhaps.
The problem is that the record of unsavory behavior in the House has shifted across party lines many times. Wright and Rostenkowski are just two modern examples of Democrats who stepped over the line. That Gingrich and DeLay are Republicans may well be immaterial. These things, it seems, are about power and how it may corrupt the people it embraces, not at all about political ideology.
It’s why Manius Curius Dentatus stuck to his turnips.
The defense that many of DeLay’s supporters are echoing these days is that nothing he has done was illegal and it all fell within the boundaries of House ethical rules, apparently a shifting set of standards frequently adapted to the times and maintained by a shifting set of House members, recently adjusted to include DeLay supporters.
But that’s not the point.
The point is how it looks to those who live outside the U.S. House. There are no fat cats in their lives to finance anything. They pay as they go, generally with their own money.
People don’t sympathize with people who defend themselves with the letter of the law:
The question is how much of this kind of stuff does it take before the House Republicans, despite their affection for DeLay’s efforts and the role they played in building the Republican House majority, say, “That’s enough” and send the majority leader packing?
DeLay’s problems take on more weight when they are viewed in light of the kind of trouble that preceded him in the House.
Rostenkowski must stand as an exception because he was brought down not by House members who tired of shenanigans but by a federal prosecutor with a big staff and a passion for measuring how House money was spent.
Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich provide better bad-behavior models.
In his explanation to the International Academy of Trial Lawyers of his role in leading the Wright investigation, Richard Phelan (now a Chicago litigator) noted that ethical standards are what makes a professional a real professional.
“Political ethics serve much the same purpose by preserving the politician’s independence from improper influence. … At the most basic level, political ethics prohibit the blatant purchase and sale of influence,” Phelan wrote.
Sounds like Dentatus, doesn’t it?