Home > The Wrong-Way Congress
The indictment of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, should have been an opportunity for Republicans to show the nation that they are ready to turn the page on the abuses of big-money politics and lobbyist pandering. At a minimum, you’d think the party would want to demonstrate that it had moved beyond Mr. DeLay’s philosophy that Congress should feel free to break the bank with out-of-control spending and tax cuts for the wealthy as long as it made G.O.P. contributors happy.
But no. Members of the Republican caucus rushed into an emergency repair session and - quite amazingly - opted to continue their shabby business as usual. In choosing Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri as Mr. DeLay’s immediate replacement, the members presented as their new face of leadership still another political wheeler-dealer best known for his deep ties to Washington’s corporate lobbying industry.
A hand-groomed protégé of Mr. DeLay, Mr. Blunt promises no change in the retrogressive Republican program that has polarized the nation and driven generations of taxpayers into deeper national debt.
Sycophantic supporters are already praising the new majority leader as more of a "conciliator," with a lighter touch and "more approachable" personality - as if the lawmakers’ challenge were all about their own intramural peace rather than the nation’s fraying commonweal.
Speaker Dennis Hastert’s initial attempt to quickly slip the majority gavel to Representative David Dreier of California caused a rebellion by conservatives who found Mr. Dreier too "moderate," even though he has spent much of his career doing Mr. DeLay’s bidding. "Moderate" is a highly relative, if not extinct, word in the G.O.P. caucus. So the befuddled speaker settled on Mr. Blunt, a hidebound conservative known for his talent as the whip in forcefully delivering administration bills and corporate campaign donations.
Mr. Blunt is also good at pushing the buttons on the Capitol’s mammoth political A.T.M. He hitched his wagon to Mr. DeLay soon after arriving in the House and built his reputation by pressing corporations to hire more Republican lobbyists, contribute more to G.O.P. campaign war chests and even build a "lobbyist whip" cadre of special interests eager to volunteer for service in pushing the Republican agenda.
In their shameless refusal to present a new broom to the nation, House Republicans are following Mr. DeLay’s game plan. They are even making a show of keeping Mr. DeLay’s leadership office vacant for his presumed return, but it is already resembling a political sepulcher more than a shrine.