If you’re bored over the weekend and want to catch up on the Tom DeLay investigation and the media’s coverage of the case, I’ve listed some DeLay-related links below.
There’s one more thing that needs to be said: Defending Tom DeLay from this prosecution does not make one a Tom DeLay apologist. I disagree with Tom DeLay on a number of issues. His statement that there was no fat left to trim out of the federal budget was appallingly stupid. I think the federal intervention into the Terri Schiavo matter at his insistence was not a proper exercise of federal power. And I do not think the prescription-drug benefit that he rammed through the U.S. House was politically necessary or fiscally wise or even defensible. This is not to mention his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which National Review has rightly criticized.
But wrong is wrong, and there is no better word to describe Ronnie Earle’s prosecution of Tom DeLay. This case is about more than Tom DeLay. It’s about the intersection of bad campaign-finance laws, an obsessed prosecutor and partisan politics. It is extremely unwise for opportunistic Democrats and groups like MoveOn to encourage Ronnie Earle and his dangerous abuse of power. It is not even slightly difficult to imagine the tables turned, with a Republican prosecutor abusing arcane campaign-finance statutes to ensnare a Democratic politician or, as Earle has done to the Texas Association of Business, bring charges against a liberal interest group. The long-term solution is to advocate fewer laws regulating who can give, how much can be given and what kinds of messages those dollars can pay for. Instead, if the goal is to eliminate corruption or the appearance of corruption, we should advocate laws that increase transparency so that the public can easily find out who has given what to whom.
Want a simpler reason to defend him? DeLay hasn’t broken the law.
BLOG POSTS (starting with most recent):
AP Reports On DeLay Judge’s MoveOn.org Contributions
CNN Bullish on DeLay Mug-Shot T-Shirts
DeLay “Filmmaker” Is Professional Left-Wing Activist
DeLay Judge Should Recuse Himself
Missing Document? What Missing Document?
DeLay’s Judge Gave to Kerry, MoveOn
No Author, No Date on Ronnie Earle’s Faux Evidence
The Corporate Money Never Went to the Candidates
The Indictment was Earle’s Finish Line
Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka on DeLay
PLUS:
Other stuff I’ve written about DeLay:
AND DON’T FORGET:
Byron York has done some incredible reporting on Ronnie Earle’s, um, eccentricities:
The DeLay Case: Lawyers Intend to Subpoena Makers of The Big Buy
The Movie: Ronnie Earle, on a Mission from God
Coming Soon: The Ronnie Earle Movie
AND:
You can find the entire Austin American-Statesman archive of stories about Ronnie Earle’s three-year investigation into the Republican takeover in Texas here.
Comments