Bugging Out

Some more on the Bug Man (Tom DeLay) and his decision to get the heck outta Dodge. First, some initial impressions from John Aravosis over at AmericaBlog last night:

2. Delay has announced he's resigning in May or June, so that's much more telling than his simply not running again. You don't resign because your re-election numbers are bad. You resign to avoid some major embarrassment to yourself or the party. I think Delay knows that another shoe, a big shoe, is going to drop. Whether he was notified about some upcoming additional indictment, or whether he's finally figured out that he's going to jail, something big happened, otherwise he wouldn't be leaving his seat early.

3. Bad news for the Republicans. Rather than take Delay out of the picture, Delay is now an even bigger story. The ongoing investigation is going to make news until the election. And this puts to rest any of the Republicans' snarking about how the prosecutor was a Democrat. He clearly caught delay doing something wrong.

And that seems about right with this WaPo article:

The picture appeared to darken further last week with the guilty plea of Tony C. Rudy, DeLay's former deputy chief of staff. Edwin A. Buckham, the lawmaker's former chief of staff and his closest political and spiritual adviser, was described in court documents filed in the case as someone who collaborated with Rudy, Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon. They arranged payments, trips and favors that the department's investigators charged were part of an illegal conspiracy, according to the documents.

DeLay himself was formally designated as "Representative #2" in the documents, a title that cannot be considered a good omen. The lawmaker designated in the same documents as Representative #1 -- Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) -- has been cited by the Justice Department as having received "things of value" for performing official acts.

Ney has not been formally named a target of the probe and denies wrongdoing. But he agreed last October to sign a Justice Department document waiving the five-year expiration of the statute of limitations on any alleged crimes until late April.

Over at the London Guardian, conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds (aka, InstaPundit) offers his take on the coming resignation--and he's not frowning:

DeLay is under investigation on charges of campaign finance violations, but I'm happy to see him leave for other reasons: He was the architect of the Republicans' "K Street strategy" - a program of incorporating lobbyists and interest groups into the process of governance - that has been disastrous for Republican ideals.

DeLay's defenders say that the K Street strategy is merely a reprise of what Democrats have been doing for decades, and they have a point. But Democrats are supposed to be the party of Big Government. Republicans are not, and the K Street strategy has led to a serious abandonment of their principles. (DeLay lost me back before the scandals broke, when he pronounced, inexplicably, that there was no fat left to cut in the federal budget.) I don't have much hope that DeLay's departure will do much tug the GOP back toward its principles, but it can't hurt.

But the boys over at Red State offer a more typical party loyalist point of view:

A fuller appreciation of DeLay's years in Republican leadership - his accomplishments, his flaws, his defenses of conervative principles and his deviations at times in practice from those principles - will have to await another day. In the end, as he often did, DeLay put the good of the party first. Good for him. I can't think that staying on as a back bencher would have been much fun. He can concentrate on clearing his name and then decide if he wants to start afresh later.

Finally, Farhad Manjoo over at Salon's War Room looks at the now wide open election in Texas's 22nd Congressional District. It covers what happens now to DeLay's slot on the ticket, but I'm more interested in how this affects his Democratic challenger, Nick Lampson:

Two theories: 1) He's toast, because the liberals will now pull back all they'd been pouring into his race, and he'll face a candidate who will likely appeal to many in the district, or 2), He's golden, because now he may challenge a candidate who's weaker than DeLay, and the lefty hordes will only strengthen their support of his effort if only to spite DeLay.

Of course, nobody knows. Left-leaning blogs, though, are already encouraging readers to step up their support of Lampson. And Lampson says he'll take whatever the Republicans can throw at him. "From day one I have been running because this district needs a congressman who will make headlines for the right reasons and work for the mainstream values I share with the people of this district," Lampson said in a statement. "No matter who I face in the general election, I am going to fight hard and I am going to win in November."

And what now for DeLay? Scott Rosenberg over at the War Room:

The Time piece, which gives DeLay plenty of space to defend himself, deny wrongdoing, and talk of his profound love for God and golf, says the former House majority leader will rededicate himself to his conservative causes: "He said he feels 'liberated' and vowed to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between religion and government."

Well, we'll see how many Republican candidates want to share a podium with him. The GOP leadership may feel glad to have one fewer albatross around the party's neck. But something tells me this isn't the last DeLay headline we'll see in the months between now and the fall elections. It may not be so easy to forget the Hammer amid the sound of falling gavels.