Hmmmm....seems like the NYTimes is losing it's ability to "make" news. What's a MSM to do now??
tnr
THAT'S LIFE
Tom Foolery
by Michelle Cottle
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As the liberal offspring of conservative parents, I rarely find anything political over which to bond with my red-state family. I was therefore pleasantly surprised this week to learn that Tom DeLay's theatrics during the Terri Schiavo tragedy have, in addition to earning him a public slap from Dick Cheney, cost him the vote of my staunchly Republican father, a resident of the majority leader's suburban-Houston district. It seems Dad is so disgusted with DeLay's hysterical ranting about holding judges accountable for Schiavo's death that he's written his congressman off as "absurd," pronouncing, "I think he's lost it."
Sadly, I suspect DeLay's Schiavo shenanigans won't do him serious political damage, or at least not enough to matter in his deep-red district. Still, I regard his alienation of even a few GOP loyalists like my dad to be yet another delightful case of the majority leader's bad behavior coming back to bite him on the backside in recent months. With a political powerhouse like the Hammer, it generally takes several drops of blood in the water before the other sharks have a prayer of taking you down. So at this point, every high-profile bit of rank arrogance or stupidity on DeLay's part gives potential aid and comfort to all those who'd love to see the reptilian congressman involuntarily privatized.
That said, when I picked up The New York Times on Wednesday to see a breathless, above-the-fold front-pager about how DeLay's wife and daughter have been paid piles of cash by DeLay's political organizations, only one thought ran through my mind: What on God's green earth was the Times thinking?
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POLITICAL GROUPS PAID 2 RELATIVES OF HOUSE LEADER screamed the headline (in all caps, naturally), as the subheds piled on: OVER $500,000 SINCE 2001; DeLay Wife and Daughter Got Money for Work Tied to Campaigns. So seductive was the scent of scandal that AOL featured the story on its opening screen, complete with a sour headshot of the beleaguered majority leader.
But titillated readers anticipating details of a gross ethical--possibly even legal!--breach by DeLay were in for disappointment. As it turns out, there is nothing shady about the payments to the congressman's kin. Daughter Dani and wife Christine have long been actively involved in DeLay's political career--planning events, raising money, organizing schedules, helping manage the occasional campaign. Were the two women out of line for demanding money for their services? Presumably not, since even the Times acknowledged (though not until well into the piece) that DeLay is far from the only lawmaker who has allowed relatives to cash in on his political career; others include Democrats such as Senator Barbara Boxer and Representative Howard Berman. (Hell, if political nepotism were a crime, half the Bush and Cheney clans would be in jail by now.)
It's hardly surprising that DeLay's colleagues have declined to take a poke at him over this ostensible outrage. Even the typically overwrought public interest groups have remained relatively subdued. The most the Times could get anyone to complain about was that the amount paid to DeLay's wife and daughter was "unusually generous" and may bear examination. Wow. Talk about a whole lot of ink wasted on nothing.
Now I'm all for kicking a goon when he's down--especially an arrogant, power-mad goon like DeLay. But the Times' push to turn a mole hill into page-one material isn't just a case of questionable journalism--though that, of course, is what the paper of record should be fretting about. In crass political terms--say, from the standpoint of the countless Dems quietly relishing the additional bad press for their nemesis--the piece also has the potential to be actively counterproductive, steering the conversation away from DeLay's actual misdeeds, while lending credence to the congressman's eternal protestations that he is being unfairly targeted by his ideological enemies.
Wednesday's Times had barely hit the stands when DeLay went on CNN to denounce "another seedy attempt by the liberal media to embarrass me" (an interview recapped in the next day's papers). Ordinarily, I ignore such bluster from the lib-baiting DeLay. But when he groused that his wife and daughter had been "singled out" for a perfectly legal, run-of-the-mill practice, I had to (grudgingly) concede his point. While the Times may not have been operating with a liberal bias, its desperation to advance a sexy storyline was clear.
But as tempting as it is to cheer journalistic overkill when its target is a character as noxious as DeLay, do the congressman's foes really want to risk having the spotlight diverted to a "culture of Washington" issue that who knows how many lawmakers would have to answer for? (And will, if the spotlight stays there for long.) Wouldn't it be better--for everyone except DeLay, that is--to keep all eyes on the Hammer's more serious problems?
Each week seems to bring fresh news of some big-ticket junket DeLay took, utterly clueless that some mysterious interest group or lobbyist or foreign agent was paying for it in violation of congressional rules. What the gentleman from Texas knew and when he knew it remains a point of hot debate as yet; but as the troublesome infractions pile up, DeLay's willful ignorance begins to feel less and less exculpatory.
Then, of course, there's still the possibility DeLay will wind up in legal trouble as a result of the ongoing civil and criminal probes into just how many laws the folks who ran his state PAC violated in helping him secure a Republican majority in the Texas legislature. Right now, the man who--arguably more than any other--amassed congressional power by ruthlessly, obsessively, tirelessly perfecting the art of political extortion (oops, make that fundraising) is asking everyone to believe that his Texans for a Republican Majority PAC cronies were engaged in creatively financing DeLay's pet project without even his knowledge, much less his oversight or participation. It's a side-splitting defense when you think about it: poor, hapless, out-of-touch DeLay, Capitol Hill's version of Bernie Ebbers. (Gawsh, folks, I didn't know nothin' 'bout nothin'. I just let my underlings handle it all.) Just look how well Ebbers's dumb act worked for him.
With the Hammer under fire for so many (alleged) real sins, why risk manufacturing any dirt? If the Dan Rather episode taught the media anything (besides the value of confirming source material), it should have been the danger of over-hyping a scandal to the point that we wind up transforming the subject of an investigation into a media martyr. These are treacherous times for DeLay, but the man is crafty. And journalists must take care not to give him even an inch of wiggle room to make the story about anything other than his own misconduct.