Newsday: DeLay may be straw that breaks GOP’s back

[seafan]

--snip

In just three weeks, the Bush White House and congressional Republicans also have faced an insider-trading probe of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and the arrest of a White House procurement official. In addition, Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown resigned under fire.

Still in the works are the investigation in the CIA leak case involving White House officials, and the ongoing grand jury probe of Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who had ties to DeLay.

--snip

But the indictment comes at a low point for President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans, with voters upset about the war and nervous about the economy, so it could add to the cumulative weight of voter discontent weighing down on Republican prospects in the midterm elections next year.

"In and of itself, it doesn't bring down a party," said Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at George Washington University. "It's got to be combined with Iraq, gas prices, whatever the litany is -- then you can use DeLay. They reflect major policy failures rather than personal peccadilloes."

--snip

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usanal0929,0,3289730.story?coll=ny-top-headlines


IMHO, this is the way to tie all of these failures together to present to the American people. It is a failure of policy, a failure of leadership, an egregious abuse of power by a group of people driven by a lust for greed and absolute power.

And it has placed all of our citizens in grave danger.

[MoJoWorkin]

1. Dean's phrase is being used on MSM---Culture of Corruption

I keep hearing it come up on various news sites. I believe it has some legs, now. He has being saying it for months, but it is finally beginning to take hold.

[expatriot]

2. What's the deal with the WH procurement official?

I have been out of the loop with any story non-Katrina related.

[seafan]

3. The indictment of David Safavian, from the Office of Management

and Budget, in charge of deciding how hundreds of billions of dollars are to be spent...

See this link:

Bush Official Arrested in Corruption Probe

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901859.html

[expatriot]

9. Thanks! nt

[leftchick]

4. check out the poll at the link!

Do you agree with the charges against Rep. Tom Delay and two associates alleging conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme?

72.8%
Yes, justice has been served. (563 responses)

15.8%
No, the charges are weak and 'skunky.' (122 responses)

11.4%
I need more information. (88 responses)

773 total responses

:rofl:

[mtnester]

5. I will believe it when I see it

Call me a cynic, but:

Plame to be the straw that broke the GOP's back

Downing Street memo to be the straw that broke the GOP's back

Social Security reform to be the straw that broke the GOP's back

Katrina to be the straw that broke the GOP's back

{insert whatever recent scandal/stupidity here} to be the straw that broke the GOP's back

Again, I will believe it when I see it.

[gratuitous]

6. The larger question, my dear friends at Newsday, is . . .

Where in hell have you guys been for the last four years? All of these problems -- DeLay's ethical handicaps, Bush's incompetence, Frist's troubles, White House leaks, Abramoff's corruption -- have all been going on for a long time. Yet only now, as they all pile up in one stinky mess, do you decide to notice them, and draw some connections between all these crimes and the possibility that the Republican party may be compromised.

I suppose it's we Democrats who are at fault, though. After all, we've just been pointing these things out and screaming at the top of our lungs for the last eight years. Easy enough to have missed it all.

Self-serving creeps.

[KittyWampus]

8. Newsday has actually been pretty good at reporting on all that.

I live on LI and read Newsday.

[gratuitous]

10. Well, I hope Newsday has been on it

And I don't wish to tar the Fourth Estate with too broad a brush, but in general they've fallen down on their job, been far too trusting and accepting of Republican corruption, and evinced very little skepticism even when administration pronouncements have been preposterous on their face.

The sudden awakening of a lot of media chuckleheads to Republican misdeeds is just so much Reyneaux-esque "shocked, shocked!" to find out that there has been anything amiss in the corridors of power during the last five or eight years.

[KittyWampus]

7. Notice how Larry Franklin's Arrest Wasn't Mentioned? A Spy In The Pentagon

a NEOCON GOP spy at that... no mention.