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Journal pudge's Journal: Earl vs. DeLay 15

Journal by pudge

Why do people feel the need to come to a conclusion about whether DeLay is guilty, or whether Earl is a rogue prosecutor? Maybe both are true. Or maybe both are false. We have a guy on the one side with questionable political motivations who has provided no evidence and can't be trusted, and on the other side we have a guy with questionable political motivations who has provided no evidence and can't be trusted.

Pretty much everyone I've seen attack DeLay or defend Earl over this are liberals and Democrats who want to bring him down. And pretty much everyone I've seen defend DeLay or attack Earl over this are conservatives or Republicans who want DeLay to remain in office.

The Island of Conclusions is pretty crowded these days.

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Earl vs. DeLay More

Earl vs. DeLay

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  • The whole thing is a photo op.

    Nuno is a pretty good guitarist he just needs to "play a song" once in a while though.

  • Good and Evil (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DisownedSky ( 905171 ) *

    Of the two, it would seem that to me that Earl is much more intent on doing his job as a public servant than DeLay is. Presumpotion of innocence, yada yada, but even if DeLay gets off on this charge (I'd bet he will), his hands are very dirty. His career is effectively over when he doesn't want it to be. Earl is delaying his own retirement to prosecute it.

    BTW, Earl has gone after powerful Democrats before, so he's an equal opportunity prosecutor.

    If the Republican leadership were wise, they would ask De

    • Of the two, it would seem that to me that Earl is much more intent on doing his job as a public servant than DeLay is.

      Based on what, apart from your own evidence-less bias?

      Presumpotion of innocence, yada yada, but even if DeLay gets off on this charge (I'd bet he will), his hands are very dirty.

      Right. Evidence-less bias. Gotcha.

      Note that despite all of the hand-wringing over how terrible DeLay is, he has never been found to violate any law or House rule, nor can you actually point to anything he's done th

      • There is lots of evidence that DeLay is in bed with some pretty shady lobbyists. There is loads of evidence, as I'm sure you know. Whether or not it's go-to-jail evidence remains to be seen (soon). Permanently-discredited-and-a-political-liability evidence - almost certainly.

        I should point out that there are a lot of Republicans who can't stand the guy, and won't miss him.

        • There is lots of evidence that DeLay is in bed with some pretty shady lobbyists. There is loads of evidence, as I'm sure you know.

          What I know is that no evidence that has been released to the public shows that he has actually done anything that violates a law or House rule. There's no evidence that he violated any rules with respect to Abramoff, only that he had some ties to him. But so what? Lots of people have ties to lots of other people. Yawn.

          And as to all the rest, the ethics committee has exonerat
  • Pretty much everyone I've seen attack DeLay or defend Earl over this are liberals and Democrats who want to bring him down. And pretty much everyone I've seen defend DeLay or attack Earl over this are conservatives or Republicans who want DeLay to remain in office.

    I'm a republican, I live in Texas, and I have been hearing about these campaign finance issues for a while now. Back during the Terry Schivo issue in Florida when Mr. DeLay was quick to divert attention from himself (by disrespecting Federal judge
    • I thought it was dubious that the house ethics committee changed their rules to afford Mr. DeLay protection when the donkeys pursued him though that venue.

      The rule is a terrible one, and should be changed. Of course it looks bad when it is changed at this time, as it is obviously to protect DeLay. But DeLay should be protected by a rule change, because the rule as it exists is ridiculously stupid, as it encourages spurious indictments on the one hand, and encourages the public to distrust indictments beca
  • Since we all know that, unfortunately illegal!=wrong and legal!=right, let’s dispense for a moment with the question of whether he broke one or more laws, procedure, rules or standards of conduct.

    Do you think DeLay has done nothing wrong?

    • Since we all know that, unfortunately illegal!=wrong and legal!=right, let's dispense for a moment with the question of whether he broke one or more laws, procedure, rules or standards of conduct.

      Do you think DeLay has done nothing wrong?

      I never even implied I think he has done nothing illegal, let alone wrong. A lot of people get confused by this sort of reasoning, but I thought I was pretty clear. I am not saying he did nothing bad -- illegal, unethical, wrong, take your pick -- I am saying there's no e
  • Ronnie has a history of prosecuting people on both sides of the fence(which is vaguely meaningful, Texas politics is some of the dirtiest and most corrupt in the country), he tends to be far more successful going after democrats however, probably because Republicans hide behind the "it's political" defense.

    Now, here's what we know. A series of corporations gave money to the RNC. The RNC then gave the same amount of money to candidates DeLay wanted to push through his gerrymandering redistricting deal that
    • DeLay certainly used his influence to make that happen.

      It's funny you used "certainly" there since no evidence has been presented that actually demonstrates it.

      DeLay definately has ethics problems and did pretty much do what he's accused of.

      Again with "definitely": there's no evidence of it. It is neither certain nor definite, in fact.

      Now, as to DeLay resigning his seat. I don't see how I'm in a position to call for that. Given that he's a congressman, and elections are coming up in just over a year, the
      • Well, it would be an incredible shock if he didn't push for it.

        DeLay wants certain people elected to the Texas Legislature in order to push through his redistricting plan. Corporations give money at DeLays request to the RNC, the exact amount is then divied out to the candidates DeLay supports. It's tough to imagine that going down without DeLay doing any behind the scenes manipulations or getting a word in edgewise. That's just based off the facts that aren't in dispute.

        The question in public media hasn
        • It's tough to imagine that going down without DeLay doing any behind the scenes manipulations or getting a word in edgewise.

          That's called speculation.

          The question in public media hasn't been whether or not DeLay did what he's accused of

          That's not true. Many reasonably objective commentators have noted that the evidence to link DeLay to any actual involvement simply is not there.

          (anyone not incredibly partisan is 99.9% sure he did, it's just common sense)

          That's called complete and total bullshit.

          Come back w
          • There's not going to be any hard evidence unless Earl manages to turn some RNC people, and that's highly unlikely.

            Comeon pudge, this is how politics goes down. A major party figure has a plan and that plan goes into effect and you can be pretty sure that figure was behind the scenes utilizing influence. Maybe I've been a bit corrupted by inside-the-beltway living, but I mean, really, you can't be this naive.

            The only reasonable alternative would be a coup inside the RNC designed to give dems ammo to take d
            • There's not going to be any hard evidence unless Earl manages to turn some RNC people, and that's highly unlikely.

              And so that justifies pretending that there is hard evidence, in the meantime?

              Comeon pudge, this is how politics goes down.

              Sometimes, yes. Maybe even often. But courts do not work on sometimeses and oftens.

              A major party figure has a plan and that plan goes into effect and you can be pretty sure that figure was behind the scenes utilizing influence.

              You have no evidence he had any such plan.

              Mayb

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