World-Herald Chooses DeLay Over Democrats

In one of its most insulting and unreasonable editorials since this site began (which is saying something), today’s Omaha World-Herald spins what appears to be a reprimand of Tom DeLay - Congress’ fallen king of Republican corruption - into a vicious and unjustified attack on the Democratic Party.

It's incomprehensible that the World-Herald could be this twisted. How insanely partisan and journalistically perverted must their purposes be to use DeLay's long-coming comeuppance in such fashion?

This man made an artform of influence-peddling, making a mockery of our democracy while earning the scorn of voters both personally and for the entire Republican Party. Recognizing this - and the danger it presents for furthering their corporate agenda - the World-Herald exercises the only option remaining for the right-wing media: attack, denounce, and defame voters' only true alternative to Republican lies and hypocrisy.

....Meanness, arrogance and cutthroat behavior were shaping Washington politics long before Tom DeLay gained power as GOP leader in the U.S. House. But the Texas congressman, to his discredit, contributed mightily to pushing national politics toward its lamentable partisan bitterness....

He enthusiastically joined with liberal Democrats to make the House the scene of ferociously polarized arguments, with the diehard right and the fanatical left controlling the debate and the thoughtful center left out in the cold....

DeLay's tactics gave no quarter to House Democrats, who frequently found themselves unfairly treated by the majority leader's take-noprisoners style. (Not that House Democrats had been paragons of fairness back in the early 1990s, when they last controlled the House and demonstrated their own brand of arrogance)....

Given President Bush's weak political position and the uncertainty in the House Republican delegation, Democrats have a realistic chance to regain control of the House this fall. Such an outcome would hardly be an improvement in terms of the national interest, given the way that the House Democratic delegation is dominated by the fervent left....

If Democrats do regain the House, Republicans will have themselves largely to blame.

Not a bit of credit for the Democratic Party. Not a single reprimand of the Republicans without some snide remark about Democrats to counter its effect.

This is your World-Herald. This is their idea of fair and balanced - liberal boogeymen and equivocation of every Republican sin. They have all the power in Washington D.C., yet the World-Herald would rather indulge fantasies about left-wing fanatics than hold their precious GOP accountable.

If the Democrats retake the House of Representatives, it is true that Republicans will have largely invited their own destruction. But, the only reason the Republicans are even in this position of absolute authority is thanks to the likes of the World-Herald. They have created this monster; they have enabled it. Now, they are doing what they can to protect it.

Sadly for them, the American people are awakening. They can see these lies for what they are, and - whether the World-Herald likes it or not - they won't stand for it any longer.

Change is coming. Balance must be restored. Democrats need not be perfect - indeed, they are not - but that hardly justifies passing blame for Republican misdeeds and corruption as some sort of shared condition. The Republican Party has had the power. They have abused it at every opportunity. Tom DeLay may be gone, but his legacy survives in the Republican majority....and the American people must stand firm this November rejecting it completely and forever - that all politicians shall remember the sting.