1115.org

“Throw your hands in the air and waive ‘em like you just don’t care.”

In minor Section D Page 29 news on Wednesday, it was revealed that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been made the target of one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history. Sorry, I had to rip that copy directly from Fox News because I was too busy looking for a 12-step program that covers schadenfreude.

Show me a Democrat who didn’t celebrate a little bit upon hearing that DeLay was indicted and had to relinquish the reigns of the Corruption Express, and I’ll show you a Republican (or at least someone from the DLC.) After watching the trainwreck of democracy that was the great Texas redistricting caper, complete with hide-and-seek state representatives, unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering, and the improper use of the Homeland Security Department, seeing DeLay forced to answer for his role in the preceding events puts a dent in the theory that justice is obsolete.

The DCCC has a site dedicated to tracking DeLay’s various scandals, and ThinkProgress has a handy guide on Ronnie Earle, the Texas prosecutor who sought the indictment. Both will come in handy now that DeLay & Co. have launched into full spin mode. I mention these because if media appearances on Wednesday are any indication, Give ‘Em Enough Rope! has metastasized as the Democrats strategy of choice. But wait: DeLay’s counterpart House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi actually put out a statement. And I’m going to make an exception to my rule of not reproducing others’ work in full this one time:

“The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom Delay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people.”

I do feel marginally better knowing that taxpayers are obviously not paying for Pelosi’s press releases by the word, but still, a bit more heft might be in order. Democrats are being handed a generational opportunity to shift the onerous balance of power in Washington yet they continue to act as if it is a trick. As if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist didn’t violate Senate ethics rules and insider trading regulations. As if Karl Rove and others in the White House didn’t violate federal law in the outing of Valerie Plame. As if Jack Abramoff’s rackets didn’t involve everyone in the Republican leadership. As if the entire Ohio Republican party didn’t participate in an investment scheme focused on rare coins that went missing. As if Randy “Duke” Cunningham didn’t sell his defense votes to a Pentagon contractor. They’re sure acting as if none of this is happening. Their cute little list of campaign topics proves that.

Until now, it’s been hard to pin this group of Republicans down because their transgressions have been so complex and sprawling that defining and presenting them to the public has been next to impossible. That’s not the case anymore. DeLay laundered money. Frist did Martha Stewart one better. Rove burned an undercover agent responsible for nuclear counter-proliferation. Abramoff sold access to and ran a slush fund for the Republican leadership.

There is no need to complicate the issue. Republicans have had their chance and they used it not to better our country, but to consolidate and profit from power. Democrats need a few short (OK, maybe not as short as Pelosi’s flaccid release) sentences that everyone can repeat until they are seared into the minds of the 60% of the country that would consider not voting Republican. DeLay opened the floodgates by actually getting indicted, but even if no one else is forced to legally pay for their sins, Democrats must extract a political price.