Tell me, does this sound like an innocent man?
Tom DeLay sneaks around the Capitol like a fugitive these days, using back doors and basement passages to avoid television cameras. He skips meetings where reporters might get a chance to film his answers to their questions. He makes unscheduled appearances so he won’t attract a media mob and disrupt colleagues’ events.
And it still doesn’t work.
At 11 yesterday morning, the House majority leader made an unannounced stop at a meeting of a high-tech group. But word got out, and a score of reporters, producers, photographers, cameramen and sound men with boom microphones were there to greet him. When he left midway through the meeting, the pack chased him down a hall and up the stairs, shouting questions about the House ethics committee, which may investigate him, and prosecutor Ronnie Earle in Austin, who already is.
“Earle says you’re America’s problem,” a questioner shouted. “What do you say to that?”
DeLay said nothing to that. He scrambled through a crowd of tourists — one of whom filmed the pack as it chased the Texas Republican — and disappeared into the unmarked back door to his office. It was another routine morning for the former exterminator who is now the most hunted man in Congress.
I’m kind of kidding about the “innocent man” thing — DeLay may be guilty as hell, but reporters’ interest is not always proportionate to culpability — but this is interesting anyway because of what it tells us about the political environment on the Hill these days.
The article explains that DeLay literally has to plan his day around avoiding reporters, sneaking through back hallways, using security to shield himself from questions, leaving meetings early to plan easy get-away routes, etc. It’s an amusing image, but the fact that such measures are necessary may actually contribute to his downfall.
First, Dems are walking these same halls — Republicans have not yet figured out a way to keep the other party literally out of the Capitol — and they see DeLay fleeing from reporters. This will only help to keep the Dems’ morale up, knowing that they have DeLay on the defensive and that their criticisms are being heard.
Conversely, seeing their embattled Majority Leader literally on the run is a morale-killer for Republicans. It’s inevitable that GOP lawmakers will soon find DeLay’s “issues” a harmful distraction, if they haven’t already.
And then there’s the rest of us. Those of us who’ve been following DeLay’s escapades are no longer in a position to ask, “Why doesn’t the media care about this?” Reporters do care; they have a shark-like sense of blood in the water; and they’re practically stalking the guy so they can try and pin DeLay down and ask him to explain his behavior.
It’s more than just an uncomfortable environment for DeLay; it’s a situation that will dog him for months and undermine his ability to lead his caucus. It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate person.