Ding, dong, DeLay

New York Times: DeLay Decides to End Career in Congress. That’s one of those “fair and balanced” headlines. The reality is probably closer to the spin in the email today from Howard Dean to the Democratic faithful: “This comes after Friday’s news that a key former DeLay aide pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with the ongoing federal investigation of DeLay’s money-for-influence machine.”

Someday someone will write the story of Tom DeLay’s fall from power, from the money laundering indictments and the insane steps that the House Republicans took to keep him in power then (including the passage of the DeLay Rule, which allowed indicted Congressional leaders to continue to hold their posts), and concluding with the Jack Abramoff saga. And they won’t be able to write about it without using the word blog more times than in any political biography ever written—with the possible exception of Trent Lott’s.

My favorite quotation from the article: “‘Our party will continue to succeed, because we are the party of ideas,’ Mr. Bush said” (emphasis added). No comment.