House of Eratosthenes

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, appearing before a judge following his indictment on an itty-bitty charge and a great-big ass-pounding charge, got mixed results on his defense’s motion to have the case thrown out, which is worse than his supporters had hoped. The itty-bitty charge of Conspiracy was thrown out, and the pound-me-in-the-ass charge of Money Laundering was upheld, which means of course that Mr. DeLay will be required to appear at trial. The upholding of the ass-pounding charge is much more important than the dismissal of the itty-bitty charge, because any hopes he had of resuming his House leadership position as Majority Leader, are DOA.

Texas Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay’s attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed.

When he was indicted in September, DeLay was required under House rules to relinquish the leadership post he had held since 2003. While Monday’s ruling was a partial victory for DeLay, he cannot reclaim his post because he remains under indictment.

The ruling means the case will move toward a trial next year, though other defense objections to the indictments remain to be heard by the judge.
:
DeLay, 58, and two GOP fundraisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, but it can be used for administrative purposes.
:
The alleged campaign-finance scheme had far-reaching political effects: With DeLay’s fundraising muscle, the GOP took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that resulted in more Texas Republicans going to Congress.

This means, without doubt, that tomorrow we should expect to be somewhat inundated with snippets about the “Republican Culture of Corruption.” After all, it was just a little over a month ago that Mister Democrat himself, Howard Screamin’ Dean, warmed us up for the Halloween season by yelling “YEEEEEAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!” No, I made that last part up. He warmed us up for the Halloween season by waxing poetic about the Republican Culture of Corruption:

The Bush White House is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history since President Warren G. Harding’s, said Howard Dean during his first visit to Maine as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dean’s comments Saturday came as top White House advisers are being investigated for their roles in the outing of a CIA operative and Tom DeLay, the former second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, faces conspiracy and money-laundering charges.

“The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to have ethics come back to Washington again,” said Dean, the keynote speaker at Saturday night’s annual fundraising dinner for the Maine Democratic Party at the Lewiston Armory.
:
More than 400 party loyalists listened as Dean described Democrats as a party of moral values, while criticizing Republicans as trying to divide Americans over race, sexual orientation and country of origin.

Dean said Republicans should not have interfered in the Terri Schiavo right-to-life case.

“I’m tired of the ayatollahs of the right wing,” Dean said. “We’re fighting for freedom in Iraq. We’re going to fight for freedom in America.”

Dean urged Maine Democrats to run for state office in 2006, and to maintain Democratic control of the State House that Gov. John Baldacci needs to push through his initiatives.
:
The purpose of the annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner was to raise money and rally the party faithful, and the event often took a light-hearted tone. Allen made one of several DeLay jokes of the night when he said he heard there was a new television show called “Desperate House Leaders.”

Okay, now fast forward to this last Friday. Ken Rudin, writing for NPR, picked up Screamin’ Dean’s line and started waxing poetic on what has come to be an undeniable trend, wherein the most powerful Republicans face indictment, come under indictment, are sentenced, have to resign their offices, or just generally have a whole lot of legal whispering about their names around the beltway. Being well aware that a big chunk of his column “looks like it was written by the Democratic National Committee, and knowing some of my regular correspondents, I will be accused of parroting the DNC line,” Rudin nevertheless blossoms forward with the stuff that was apparently written by the Democratic National Committee, and proceeds to parrot the DNC line.

So now it’s Duke Cunningham.

When Lewis Libby, the vice president’s former chief of staff, is under indictment; when the most powerful member of the House, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), is forced to resign his leadership post following an indictment; when his former spokesman, Michael Scanlon, pleads guilty to bribery charges and agrees to cooperate in the investigation of an associate, top Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff (and one which could also bring down Rep. Robert Ney (R-OH), chairman of the House Administration Committee); when Bill Frist (R-TN), the Senate majority leader, is under scrutiny by the Security and Exchange Commission; and when Karl Rove, the president’s top political aide, is still under investigation by a special prosecutor, the guilty plea and subsequent resignation of Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) on bribery charges just adds to the party’s misery.

Let’s do a little mental exercise, shall we.

Since the facts that Rudin recites are undeniable — in fact, now, more damning than they were 72 hours ago — and since, boy-oh-boy, they sure look indicative of Mister “YEEEEEAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!”‘s Culture of Corruption: Let us just give him this. Let us all agree there is a Culture of Corruption in the Republican party. Being a Republican is being corrupt, and being corrupt is being Republican. Let’s just go with that for sake of argument.

Let us further suppose that I’m going to run for Congress. Yes, me. The guy who writes a blog nobody reads. I haven’t led a personal life that would withstand the anal/rectal exam through which one must go when one runs for office — don’t look so relieved — but let’s just say I go ahead and do this. And what the hell, why not run as a Republican? Republicans are filthy, after all, it’s the Culture of Corruption. I’d fit right in!

So Corrupt Mister Freeberg runs for office as Republican Congressman Freeberg. And of course I win; after all, I’m corrupt! Remember? So here comes Corrupt, Republican, Freshman Congressman Freeberg in his brand new limousine with his brand new parking spot and his brand new…aw, I haven’t the slightest clue what those guys have. I’ll bet it’s pretty sweet. My own real live starship? Whatever.

So Morgan Freeberg goes to Congress and starts being a corrupt Republican. La dee dah…boy it sure is fun, being corrupt.

And, since I’m a freshman, I don’t really know the ins and outs of things. I start trusting people I shouldn’t be trusting, because, after all, I’m a freshman. I bribe people who don’t take bribes. I talk at the wrong meetings. I threaten the wrong people. I’m sloppy.

Of course I get nailed! Stupid green little freshman Congressman Freeberg!

And there are over 220 corrupt Republican congressmen just like me, maybe over half of them fresh and stupid. Plus 55 corrupt Republican senators, let’s say, between 15 and 20 of them fresh and stupid. We all get nailed because with our inexperience, we don’t know how to avoid it. Oh, we’re seasoned at being corrupt of course — we just don’t know how to do it in Washington! We just got here!

But the law won’t give us a break. So down the river we go. All hundred and fifty or so of us stupid, inexperienced, fresh, green, gullible corrupt Republicans. We wear pinstripes, while our wiser, seasoned, more experienced corrupt mentors look upon us with a mixture of disappointment, embarrassment, disgust, and maybe some empathy for the ass-poundings the freshman class is about to get. Bye, freshmen!

Okay, let’s step back in reality now. Take a look around. This is not what has been happening.

The Vice-President’s Chief of Staff.

The House Majority Leader’s former spokesman.

The House Majority Leader himself.

A top Republican lobbyist; not one of those fly-by-night dime-a-dozen lobbyists.

The Chairman of the House Administration Committee.

The Senate Majority Leader.

The President’s top political aid.

An eight-term congressman from San Diego and Chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee.

Where are all the know-nothing freshmen in this Culture of Corruption? Are we being asked to believe this is a thing where the senior slimeballs keep hanging themselves out to dry, while the newcomer slimeballs who haven’t even had a chance to become dried and crusty, wisely avoid the pitfalls? What is this — you learn the ropes on your first day, and then as you get older you forget them?

Or is this a poorly-organized Culture of Corruption that continues to send its grand-high-poobahs to do the dirty work, and thus risk getting nailed? While the freshmen just sit around? Perhaps being lazy corrupt people?

Kind of like Captain Kirk beaming down to the planet to fight the lasagna-monsters, while the strong-back weak-minds stay up topside, safely scrubbing the Enterprise’s 23rd-century latrines?

Or is it just an odd coincidence that the senior figures who pose the biggest threat to the opposing party, are the ones that hafta-go-down? And someone, somewhere, is making these decisions, without accountability, exposure, or even scrutiny?

Anybody who stumbles across this blog and reads this post, can make up their own mind. I’ve made up mine.

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A Little ExerciseMonday, December 5th, 2005

A Little Exercise
Monday, December 5th, 2005