Sympathy for DeLay

You can’t entirely blame Tom DeLay for being annoyed and feeling abused. He is trapped in a Washington Kabuki drama not of his own devising.

Two different government investigations are looking into DeLay’s relationship with a bunch of Indians he undoubtedly knew hardly at all and cared about even less. One of these investigations is asking whether he ripped off these Indians. The other is asking whether the same transactions amount to his Indians buying improper influence in a dispute with some other Indians. So they can’t even decide if the Indians are the good guys or the bad guys (DeLay may be thinking), but Tom DeLay is the bad guy no matter what.

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff got $66 million from various Indian tribes trying to protect their gambling interests, and kicked $4 million of it to Ralph Reed. All poor DeLay got was a trip or three to Europe, a round or two of golf and a meeting with Margaret Thatcher. (Second prize: two meetings with Margaret Thatcher.)

DeLay isn’t entirely paranoid in thinking that the press is out to get him, though this is less because of any liberal bias than because (a) he’s a smug and preening s.o.b., or at least he has chosen that public image; (b) he’s the most powerful person in Congress -- the media helped Newt Gingrich bring down House Speaker Jim Wright, too; and (c) he’s down and wounded, so naturally it’s the moment to pile on. I don’t defend these motives. I merely clarify that they’re not ideological.

The water torture drip-drip-drip of daily revelations must be driving DeLay crazy. But it is not the result of an elaborate scheduling operation down in the bowels of Liberal Media Conspiracy Inc. (“Ready, Washington Post? OK, go now with that third DeLay golf trip....”) It’s the opposite: When a story is hot and competition is fierce, you go with the tiniest morsel before someone else does.

Speaking of Gingrich, media high spirits can explain -- but not nearly justify -- the absurd over-importance awarded to an equivocal remark by this discredited has-been that DeLay should “lay out a case.” It’s been treated like the first encyclical of the new pope. Gingrich was last seen leading the charge to impeach President Clinton over Monica, while conducting a secret affair his married self with a congressional aide. If DeLay is thinking, “Who gives a rat’s elbow what Newt thinks?” I’m with him. But Newt may also be a comforting example for DeLay. However censorious the media may be in the heat of scandal, journalists are tolerant and forgiving in the five- to 10-year time frame. We don’t really want to drive anyone interesting off the stage.

Although the scandal is real, and its unreeling is very enjoyable, all of the specific controversies that propel it are bogus. Were the tribes attempting to influence legislation when they spent $66 million on Republican candidates and causes that are as alien to them as they themselves are to their Republican beneficiaries? Or do the Alabama-Coushatta Indians of Louisiana simply feel strongly that the Senate majority leader needs to play more golf? Not a tough question.

Why is it illegal to attempt to influence a specific vote, but perfectly OK to attempt to influence several votes, or all votes? What on Earth difference does it make whether the Indians, per instructions from Abramoff, sent the money for one of DeLay’s golfing trips to the think tank that allegedly was paying for it before or after the trip, or whether the funds were earmarked or not? Looking for influence peddling in Washington is like looking for air. You can’t see it because it’s everywhere.

Bogus technicalities and media excesses aside, though, the whole Abramoff-Reed-DeLay story is pretty wonderful. You gotta love the basic plotline of a Washington lobbyist who organizes a religious campaign against gambling on behalf of gambling interests trying to block competition. You gotta love imagining the scenes where Abramoff explains the white man’s ways to bemused tribal leaders. (“Why yes, writing large checks to nonprofit public policy groups so that our leaders can travel to distant lands and hit a small ball with a stick until it goes into a hole is a rich tradition going back many thousands of years.”)

You gotta love angelic Ralph Reed piling on the whoppers. He had no idea that his $4 million to stir up anti-gambling sentiment in Louisiana came from gambling interests in Texas. Never wondered where the money came from and never bothered to ask. Even after Abramoff e-mailed him about one tribe (which he memorably refers to as “those moronic Tiguas”): “I’d love us to get our mitts on that moolah.”

The final twist is, after insulting the Tiguas and getting their casino shut down, Abramoff offers them his services -- for a fee -- to get it reopened. You can’t buy that kind of irony.

Or apparently you can.