Rumor has it that Tom DeLay’s next gig (while waiting for the prosecutors to drop the other shoe) will be with Rick Scarborough’s theocratic Vision America. DeLay is already portraying himself as a victim of the “war on Christians.”
Dr. Johnson’s dictum out of date. Patriotism is no longer the last refuge of a scoundrel, because it’s where the scoundrels start out. The last refuge of a scoundrel, whether the scoundrel’s name is Colson, Abramoff, or DeLay, is now religion.
Footnotes In another act of GOP Calvinball, DeLay will change his legal residence from Texas to Virginia, thus allowing his buddies back home to anoint an official Republican candidate in his place, which would otherwise be impossible under Texas law since DeLay already won the primary. I think it’s fair that the voters have a choice, but it’s also typical that DeLay should act to get around the rules. As Stuart Levine and others point out, one motivation for DeLay’s withdrawal from the race is that he can now use his $1.3 million campaign warchest as a legal defense fund.
GOP Calvinball?
To my mind, this is somewhat less disreputable than the events that proceeded from the demise of Robert Torricelli and the subsequent last-minute substitution of Frank Lautenberg.
It’s one thing when a bad actor plays the law to his advantage. It’s another thing when the, ahem, “impartial judiciary” mangles the law beyond recognition.
Ah, well, Molière knew all this before Johnson (who probably was as contemptuous of French literature as of French food).
This isn’t a Torricelli style situation where the rules are inconvenient, so you just go to court to get them overturned; The moving out of the state dodge is just a case of exploiting the rules as they already are, not getting around them.
That said, if DeLay ends up in prison, I won’t be the least bit upset; If the laws of this nation were being impartially enforced against members of Congress, they’d probably find it hard to get a quorum together… My only gripe is that he won’t have enough company.
Surely we all remember the story of how Jesus misappropriated funds to pay his legal fees?