Houston Democrats

We'll be drinking even more liberally than usual tomorrow evening.

Don't anybody start celebrating too early because DeLay has Dick DeGuerin defending him, and DeGuerin is NOT known for losing cases. The man KNOWS how to pick a jury. I heard on the news last night that DeGuerin said "DeLay has changed the face of politics in Texas and this indictment is merely a partisan payback" (or something very akin to that). Dick DeGuerin is a very powerful attorney. He represented Kay Bailey Hutchison a few years ago when she got into some trouble. The charges were brought by Ronnie Earle and eventually dropped. DeGuerin has NO loyalty to either political party. He represents whoever has the money to pay his enormous fees. He also represents those people he feels he can win with. Dick WOULDN'T have taken DeLay's case if he didn't think he could get the guy declared innocent. Obviously, DeGuerin worships at the foot of the Almighty Dollar altar as the illustrious illegal Bush administration does.

I hope DeLay is convicted and does some jail time, but the realist in me is saying he won't serve a day and will probably even be cleared of all charges and able to retain his post as majority leader. Watch how this unfolds carefully. DeGuerin will find some way for DeLay to slime his way out of this mess.

In 1992, I actually served on a jury where Dick DeGuerin was one of the defense attorneys. (Sam Nucci was the prosecutor.)

He questioned me pretty hard and included me in the jury. Quite a mistake since I ended up being foreperson and we convicted his client who jumped bail between jury deliberations and the delivery of the verdict.

I still say don't start breaking out the champagne and balloons, Lyn. DeGuerin is a wily attorney. I read something today that inferred that DeLay might have already copped a plea to a lesser charge. Time will tell. He may never serve a day in jail. If he is unable to continue as House Majority Leader he will probably end up being a powerful lobbyist for some corporation. DeLay's influence in Washington is unmatched and many, many people owe him many, many favors.

About DeLay stepping down temporarily: Even if DeGuerin shoots Ronnie Earle and charms the jury into beatifying The Hammer, don't rule out the power of Overweening Ambition, one of Will Shakespeare's favorite subjects. Don't you know that the House of Reps is just teeming with Repugs who have visions of themselves in their own black pinstripe suits and Cuban stogies, rared back in the Whip's chair in that just-fumigated luxurious office so different from their own plain-cloth official digs? They may make public outcry of support for DeLay now, when they have so many cohorts to hide behind, but what about when DeLay is up to his eyeballs in (perjured)testimony in Austin and nobody is really paying much attention to the store back in Cloud-Cuckoo Land D.C.? As Lady Macbeth would no doubt exclaim--softly--to her own true, murderous love,something like,"What can we not accomplish while their backs are turned?" so might a veritable horde of bright-eyed, overweeningly
ambitious Republican WannabeWhips make their stealthy way toward that office where the Hammer and Tongs are stored, saying to their little asshole selves, "I can beat up on people as good as he can!" Republican honor, or the absolutely appalling lack of it, being what it is, I can just see them slobbering over the very idea right this minute, even as they declare their undying loyalty to Tom the Turkey.

Great post, Muriel! It brought a smile to my face. I do hope DeLay is crucified. I'll sit back and watch the show with cautious optimism.

Oops! I see I have demoted DeLay to Whip (the title fits him so well). A thousand pardons. I guess I see The Ham and Denny Hastert and Roy Blount as one three-headed entity, a nasty, slimey Cerberus guarding the gate to the place where the Repugs store their ill-gotten, criminally distributed corporate loot. It must have taken DeLay a long time just to move that stuff from one office to another.

And another thing: Who let that terminally juvenile Chris Elam, who apparently knows everybody's title but nobody's real worth, back in? I hope he enjoys crowing about how powerful he is, because come November and come 2006...