There is no doubt that DeLay has gotten too comfortable with the perks of power and had a cringe-making relationship with a sleazy Washington lobbyist named Jack Abramoff. Given the ways of Washington, these shouldn't be firing offenses, especially when the outrage over them is driven less by good-government zeal than frank partisanship. House Democratic campaign head Rep. Rahm Emanuel has been open about making ethics charges a linchpin of the Democratic political strategy.
The independent ethics groups that have been decrying DeLay's practices, such as Democracy 21 and Common Cause, are allies in this partisan push. Their contributors are hyper-Democrats like George Soros, and their staffers are often former Democratic politicos. They identify ethical government with Democratic government, and get the cooperation of the press, which would have no use for DeLay even if he were the reincarnation of Mr. Smith. This is why House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi can secure a federal grant for a nonprofit that contributes to her political action committee, as The Washington Times recently reported, and the story barely causes a ripple, let alone gets recycled every 39 days.
The Democratic assault on DeLay is modeled on Newt Gingrich's ethics drive against the Democratic leadership when Republicans were out of power in the early 1990s. That tack proved successful, but because it was combined with a serious intellectual and policy push. That is what's missing from the current Democratic campaign, which is all about DeLay, pure and simple. In fact, the Democrats have taken to charging that the House is being distracted from its policy work because of the DeLay controversy of their making. This amounts to saying: "Stop us before we attack Tom DeLay again!"
Of course, the substantive bankruptcy of the congressional Democratic minority is not news ? however you define the term.