DeLay ordeal

Last week, when I posted that the Washington Post & the NYTimes wanted DeLay’s head, it was pointed out to me that the WSJ had run an editorial against him as well. True enough. The first thing I noticed, however, was that the WSJ piece was on the editorial page. The second thing was that the WSJ piece seemed primarily concerned that DeLay was developing the perception of corruption and was thus becoming a political liability. Nothing wrong with the way WSJ handled its opinion of DeLay, even if I disagree. In contrast, The NYTimes recycled old news like it was new news to create that perception of continually mounting corruption. Unfortunately, the Washington Post’s tactics weren’t much better (I say unfortunately because I consider the Post a more responsible paper than the NYTimes). If the two papers have a beef with the Congressman, they should concentrate their efforts on the opinion pages, not compromise the integrity of their frontpages.

I’ll give the left credit: they have damaged DeLay. Though it is not likely that DeLay will be found guilty of any of the more serious charges, according to this NRO piece, his leadership position is in jeopardy.