More Spin...the Indictment Game

Yesterday the Justice Department indicted David Rosen, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's former finance director, on charges that he filed fictitious reports re a Hollywood fund-raiser for Senator Clinton. The indictment says he misstated the amount of the contributions. Last September, a Texas grand jury indicted three of Republican House Majority leader Tom DeLay's political associates on charges of using a political action committee to illegally collect corporate donations and to funnel them to Texas legislative races. The group, Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, is closely associated with DeLay. DeLay says he has not acted improperly. What are the chances that Rosen’s indictment is a quid for the DeLay quo? And what are the chances the Rosen indictment is going to get as much play as the DeLay charges? It has been alleged that Rosen deliberately understated the Hollywood fund-raising costs so it would have more money to spend on Senator Clinton’s campaign. The indictment says the fund-raiser cost more than $1.2 million, but that Rosen reported contributions of $400,000. Okay...that’s the quid. Here’s the quo: DeLay’s illegal fund-raising in Texas gave Republicans the majority they needed to redistrict the congressional delegation which produced a swing of five more GOP congressmen from Texas. DeLay got the Republican Ethics committee to change its rules to state that an indicted legislator could keep his post even though he had been indicted for malfeasance. Will Rosen go jail? He could. Will DeLay go to jail? Not in a million years. Last week when DeLay was encouraged to rethink the Republican Ethics Committee rule change that benefitted him, the turn-around no doubt came at the price of a promise he would not be indicted. The big problem for Republicans is that although they can keep on engaging in reprehensible behavior for the foreseeable future because they have the power in the Senate and the House to do so, their shenanigans will eventually reach the tipping point. It happened to Senator Joseph McCarthy. It happened to Nixon. It’s a bad day for the Republican party when they can’t find a Democrat with flaws that even comes close to the criminal behavior of their majority leader. It’s a bad day for the Republican party when even a tsunami can’t wash away the stink coming out of the White House