Tuesday, October 11, 2005

If You're Going to Shoot at the King, Don't Miss

Democrats are beside themselves with glee that Tom "the hammer" Delay, Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives had to step down after being indicted on conspiracy / money laundering charges.

Glee, I tell you.

There's just two problems that they are not taking into account yet.

First, it's clear to me after following all of the news about the indictment that it won't hold up. The initial indictment was flawed, due to the minor technicality that the act alleged wasn't illegal at the time alleged, that it was dismissed. The second indictment, money laundering, was elicited from a grand jury that had only been impaneled for five hours. I think Delay will succeed on getting the indictment dismissed on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct.

Second, the Republican Leadership is not taking getting shot at by partisan enemies lightly. According to a radio interview that I heard with Delay himself last week, the leadership met privately and circled the wagons - agreeing to start agressively pursuing policy matters that have been idle such as spending cuts, energy policy including drilling in Alaska, border control, etc. It's full tilt for straight out conservative Republican policies in the next six weeks. Kind of an unintended consequence of indicting the leader, I would say.

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