Friends in Low Places

With apologies to Garth Brooks ...

HoustonChronicle.com - Supporters bemoan loss of leadership, clout - Houston Chronicle
DeLay indicted in fund-raising probe - Galveston Daily News

Let's check in on Tom DeLay's supporters, shall we?

Mike Shelley (Sugar Land, TX)

Mike Shelley of Sugar Land said, however, that he's voted for DeLay before and plans to vote for him again in 2006.

"I figure all politicians are crooks. I don't think he's any more crooked than the others," Shelley said. "Better the crook I know than the crook I don't."

What a sweet sentiment. Sadly, the rest of the so-called conservative crowd doesn't get any better.

Mystery Guest, Highland Park

?My heart goes out to Tom and his family.... We must all remember that in our system of justice he is innocent until proven otherwise and he deserves the chance to tell his story.?

Why, that'd be our infamous "moderate" Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison. Seems one of those things she's moderate on is corruption. Who knew? Apparently, Andrew Dobbs reminds us of her prior run in with Ronnie Earle ... facts you'll never hear from a Republican blogger nor the mainstream media (for some odd reason ... coulda swore they were supposed to be liberal).

And just for the record, the Chron report muffs on identifying Tony Buzbee as the former Galveston County Democratic Party Chair. He's the former Chair ... former State Rep. Lloyd Criss is the current chair. The Galveston paper, naturally, gets it right.

And just for a bit of added humor, here's something to tide us all over:

Kevin Whited - 11:44am: DeLay indicted by Texas grand jury: "... partisans on both sides will surely be howling for a while."

Kevin Whited - 8:50pm: DeLay's tormentor: Partisan or just power mad?: "Earle's nearly messianic view of himself and his strange obsession with "abuse of power" instead of actual violation of law ... blahblahblahblah"

Ah to be a highminded, above-it-all noncommitalist one moment and a howling partisan who conveniently forgets that indictments are, in fact, based on actual accused "violations of the law" several hours later. Perhaps if he bothered to read Tom Kirkendall's saner recap of the indictment, he'd know that:

Criminal conspiracy is a state felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000.

Of course, Kevin did read the very post ... even adding comments on Tom's post that are, predictably, as howling as any partisan out there. *sigh*

One point to clarify on Tom's post ... while DeLay attorney Dick Deguerin is considered a Democrat, he's very much a "Kay Bailey Hutchison" Democrat last I checked.

That said, as Tom and Andrew both hint at, there's reason to be sceptical of seeing DeLay doing a frog march in an orange jumpsuit. The indictment is a bit skimpy in terms of how it impacts DeLay's potential (eventual?) prison record, Earle's a bit flaky when it comes to courtroom antics, and an added point from Kuff's reading - the indictment wasn't even Earle's doing.

Meanwhile, "THE" conservative blog of Sugar Land (you'd swear there should be more for such a conservative part of the state) has yet to chime in with anything more than DeLay press releases. Funny, he sure had a lot more to say when there were rumors of Hastert stepping down and DeLay becoming speaker. Rumors like that don't come around every day, as Chris noted then ... neither do indictments of sitting House Majority Leaders.

Meanwhile, the folks at Lone Star Times turn the mic over to irritable Owen, whose knowledge of the law is apparently better than anyone else's ... he notes that there's actually no underlying offense. Whew ... glad that's all over with.