DeLay-Rove-Terri Schiavo-Fox News

The entire DeLay situation continues to get more interesting. I wrote yesterday that I thought Karl Rove and company thought DeLay was becoming poison and would start an attempt to dump him. Over at the Stakeholder jesselee thinks it may be too late. His supporters, many of whom are in positions of power because of him, are circling the wagons. They don't think they need George W. Bush or Karl Rove anymore and they are too well entrenched for Rove or moderate Republicans to dislodge. At the same time Digby thinks the DeLay Republicans may be losing the support of many the rank and file on the right and that it was the Terri Schiavo fiasco that brought it on. Perhaps more importantly the rank and file are becoming disenchanted with Fox News and right wing radio over their coverage of the Schiavo media circus.

This Tom DeLay mess is really getting interesting, isn't it? While I appreciate the "don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes" strategy, after some thought I've decided that it's probably a good idea for the Democrats to put pressure on Delay right now. As a matter of fact, I think it will ensure that the wingnuts continue to support him and that he stays in the news and in his post well into the 2006 election cycle. Nothing will make the radicals more vociferously defend their wounded leader than a bunch of Democrats attacking him. And I think that we want the extreme rightwing to be defending Tom DeLay, especially the Randall Terrys and the James Dobsons, as often as possible.

We especially want to see those guys on Fox News. A lot. And here's why. Something happened during the Schiavo circus, I think, and it was something significant. But it wasn't that the nation saw that politicians were all a bunch of craven opportunists. They already knew that. It was that the Republican professional class, the libertarians and some common sense types saw FOX News and talk radio as being full of shit for the first time. I have nothing but a handful of anecdotes to back that up, but I think Schiavo may turn out to be the first big tear in the right wing matrix.

Digby is right when he says the Democrats should keep the pressure on DeLay and make his supporters make the circle tighter and tighter. Rove is right, DeLay is poison. Unfortunately for Karl it may be too late for him to do anything about it.

Cross posted on Running Scared