Delay and Clinton
Steve at ThoughtsOnLine compares Tom Delay to Bill Clinton.:
The question is whether Republicans will turn a blind eye to his misdeeds, whether they will do for DeLay what the Democrats did for Clinton. Will they stand by him because they can't stand to see the Democrats 'win'? Or will they move him aside because it is the right thing to do? Right now, it doesn't look like the GOP will do the right thing. Like the Democrats did with Clinton, the GOP is rallying around DeLay.He also has a link to a Slate summary of Delay's misdeeds. I haven't followed the Delay scandals closely. Sadly, I expect more politicians than not to be at least a little corrupt and I dislike seeing evidence of that. I am also conflicted in cases like this, because as with Clinton, enemies will seize on innocuous things and blow them out of proportion frequently. One the one hand is the presumption of innocence, on the other avioding even the appearance of evil. That being said, his congressional leadership position is not something he has by 'right' and can, and I think should, be taken away. It isn't an unreasonable expectation that serious allegations should result in at least a temporary removal from a position of power that can corrupt the ethics comittee (and there is certainly good evidence that he has done that, even if he has done nothing else.) That is unacceptable and should be loudly condemned by all. Trent Lott rightly went down for much less in my opinion. I will also say that I dislike Delay's take-no-prisoners style. Even when I agree with what he is trying to accomplish, I don't think that refusal to negotiate with the opposing party or coming down hard on disent within one's own party is the right answer. I want our representatives to vote their beliefs and in the best interests of their constituents, not on a purely partisan basis. (via Instapundit)
posted by Dave Justus | 4/08/2005 10:43:00 AM
2 Comments:
Dave, I have voted pretyy much a straight republican ticket for years. But let me say this. In my opinion Tom Delay is crazier than a run over dog! The best thing for the party to do now is dump him like last nights slop jar! He is hurting the party's image with the swing voters who put Bush in office. One would think that the republicans would learn from what happened to the dems over Bill Clinton. Rallying around nuts like Delay is enane.
That is mostly my thought as well. Some of the crap they have given him is unfounded though, for example the payments to his wife and daughter totalling about 500K. While that sounds like a lot, it is over a period of 4 or 5 years and by all accounts they are both very serious campaign organizers and advisers. So that works out to about 50K a year each, hardly an unreasonable sum. In addition, this sort of thing is common for all politicians.
I could certainly live with an anti-nepotism rule that kept the families of politicians from being paid by their campaigns etc. (I could also advance good arguments why this isn't needed) but the fact is this rule doesn't exist and there is nothing illegal (and probably nothing immoral) about DeLay paying his wife and daughter.
This illustrates though how tough it is to determine if any given 'scandal' story is real or not, you can't judge by the loudness of the outrage, you have to take time and look into it, and that takes up a lot of time. DeLay isn't enough of an interest of mine to focus the effort to find out the truth, so I have to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I stand by my thought that he should lose his leadership position though at least until he is cleared (if he is cleared) of these ethical charges.
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