It is now being widely reported that the corruption investigations begun two years ago have finally resulted in an indictment on conspiracy charges (also available as a PDF) against Tom DeLay himself. If convicted, the penalty will be six months to two years in prison, and up to a $100,000 fine. The current Republican struggle seems to be to make sure that he is treated better than everyone else going through the legal system when he is fingerprinted and photographed.
After all that he has gotten away with, it's almost unbelievable that he may finally face justice, if only for a relatively minor charge. Seeing the story in the press has also been an interesting experience, as it highlighted an unexpected strong right-wing bias in the Washington Post, which in addition to publishing a much larger excerpt of DeLay's prepared statement attempting to deflect the charges by blasting the integrity of investigating Texas district attorney Ronnie Earle (more on this shortly), brought out quotes from no less than six other Republicans supporting him, and likewise making the accusation that this was nothing but a political play on Earle's part. No attempt was made to find anyone speaking out against DeLay, or positively about Earle. I might not have noticed, except that the reports from the Associated Press (via the New York Times) and CNN were significantly more neutral, posting not only Tom DeLay's accusations, but also noting that Ronnie Earle has prosecuted far more Democrats than Republicans, and that Earle wasn't actually the one that issued the indictment; the grand jury was:
The majority leader derided Earle as an "unabashed partisan zealot" and a "rogue district attorney."However, the grand jury's foreman, William Gibson, told The Associated Press that Earle didn't pressure members to indict DeLay. "Ronnie Earle didn't indict him. The grand jury indicted him," Gibson said in an interview at his home.
The Republican plan seems to be to go on the offensive, attempting to shift the focus from DeLay to Earle (Michelle Malkin is posting a small collection of early strategic notes, for those interested in seeing them), while simultaneously pointing fingers at Democrats who have been involved in similarly shady transactions for the "everyone else does it" defense. (As an aside, while I consider the parallels a bit suspect, given the sources, I'm entirely in favor of prosecuting any Democrats who were likewise involved in election rigging. The solution should always be to get as many of the corrupt types as you can, not let them all go free because you can't get them all at once.)
The attacks on Ronnie Earle appear to be entirely based on his handling of the ethics charges brought against Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1994. When the judge refused to rule on whether or not crucial evidence would be permissible, Earle decided that the case was unwinnable, and dropped the charges. The Republican war machine immediately went on a counteroffensive, claiming that this was because the charges were trumped up in the first place, and that the prosecution was nothing more than a partisan political maneuver, despite the fact that of his fifteen prosecutions, 12 of the targets were Democrats and one was Jim Mattox, Hutchison's challenger in the 1994 Senate election.
He has been a Republican target ever since, and particularly since Earle's investigation netted DeLay's top three aides, the spin machine has been pumping out a repeated (albeit unsupported) attacks on Earle's integrity, partisanship, and even his sanity, documented by Media Matters here, here, here, and here (they also have a special category just for media coverage of Tom Delay).
When not inspired by political backlash, however, articles about Ronnie Earle practically glow with praise — and specifically for his integrity. Think Progress has a collection of examples rebutting the spin. Particularly compelling are the accounts of his insistence on prosecuting even friends, and even over what some would consider minor matters.
I said, ‘Ronnie, how can it be an abuse of power to threaten a lawyer? We threaten each other all the time.’ He told me that elected officials are held to a higher standard. They are supposed to be [above suspicion] like Caesar’s wife.
More documents related to the Tom DeLay scandal can be found at the Perrspectives Resources page, and a video of DeLay's response has been linked by conservative blog The Political Teen (hat tip to Pandagon, including the comments there).
