Democrats & "Cardassian Justice"

No matter how many times I see it, I never fail to be amazed at the ubiquity of press bias and the imperiousness of liberals who really do believe that they are entitled to a monopoly on the field and terms of public debate.

This AP blurb is an example of both:

The White House on Thursday defended President Bush's decision to insert himself into Tom DeLay's legal case, saying Bush was employing "presidential prerogative" when he declared the former House majority leader was innocent of criminal charges in Texas.

How did the President "insert himself" into Ronnie Earle's persecution of Tom DeLay? He was asked for his opinion and gave it:

On Wednesday, Bush was asked during an interview on Fox News Channel whether he believed DeLay was innocent. "Yes, I do," Bush replied.

The President expressed his opinion on a public issue. Isn't that something every American is entitled to do? Why in God's name does this have to be "defended"? Since when does becoming President of the United States require forfeiture of one's First Amendment rights? If that were the case, it would have added several thousand additional articles to Bill Clinton's impeachment.

But of course, the above questions are rhetorical. The answers are obvious. The Left has already tried and convicted Tom DeLay. It's an article of dogmatic faith that "the Hammer" is guilty of any charge brought against him, no matter how ludicrous, because their real charge against him is that he is an aggressive, effective conservative, who was getting things done legislatively that they opposed. Therefore they had to get rid of him, and nothing can be allowed that could possibly raise the chances of DeLay's destruction being averted.

To libs, in other words, DeLay has no right to be defended, even to the extent of the only man in the country they hate more than him telling a talking head that, "Yeah, I think he's innocent."

So out came the long knives of prevarication yet again:

Bush's support of DeLay drew criticism from Senator Charles Schumer, D-NY, who told the president in a letter, "You were willing to break your stated policy of not commenting on pending investigations to express clear and unequivocal support for Tom DeLay."

There's a couple of details Chucky left out: that "stated policy" pertains to investigations of Bush's own Administration, a member of which Representative DeLay is, last I checked, not. And DeLay is no longer under investigation; Earle couldn't find anything on him, and therefore shopped grand juries until he found one that would approve his pre-conceived indictments anyway. Which is why the President's expressed opinion of DeLay's innocence stated the obvious - as Democrats damn well know.

That helps explain why Senate Minority Leader Harry "Barney Fife" Reid, the man who last spring publicly denounced the President as a "liar" while the latter was overseas and then refused to either retract or apologize for it, told this whopper:

The President of the United States said a jury does not need to assemble, that Tom DeLay is innocent.

The first part of that sentence is, as my dearly devout grampa used to say, horseshit. Not only did Dubya not say that "a jury doesn't need to assemble," he specifically underlined to Brit Hume that, "I want this trial to be conducted as fairly as possible." As should anybody who is truly interested in justice being done, because said trial will be Ronnie Earle's utter and complete humiliation.

If full justice is done, Tom DeLay will then return triumphantly to his post as House Majority Leader. Time will tell whether House Republicans have the cajones to do the right thing - as the President showed he has to simply express a "heretical" opinion.

[HT: Powerline]