House GOP stumbles more with DeLay absent from leadership post...

Ahhhhhhh to bad, so sad, mayby you can catch up with him in the joint

By Scott Shepard
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, November 24, 2005

WASHINGTON — The absence of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay from the Republican congressional leadership has been noticeable in recent weeks as the GOP has stumbled in rounding up important votes in the House.

Some argue that the Sugar Land Republican has become a drag on the conservative agenda on Capitol Hill and that he should consider stepping aside from his leadership post for good. Others contend that the GOP's problems are bigger than DeLay, that they are part of a confluence of political miseries. Still others think that DeLay's problems portend an intraparty fight for control of the GOP.

"The simple fact is that the extraordinary Republican unity in the House over the last 4 1/2 years cannot be sustained in this current political and policy environment," said Thomas Mann, a congressional expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

"(President) Bush's support is collapsing, the war in Iraq has become very unpopular, conservatives are tired of big-government spending, moderates are tired of tax cuts, and all Republicans fear that (Democratic accusations of) corruption, cronyism and the abuse of power will join the war in Iraq to threaten their majority in Congress," he said.

The "DeLay drag," as Minter described it, includes his long friendship with onetime lobbying powerhouse Jack Abramoff, now at the center of a federal investigation of alleged bribery on Capitol Hill.

Even Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and one of the nation's most influential conservatives, acknowledged that the GOP was mired in political problems this fall: the indictments of Delay and former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby, soaring gas prices, the botched federal response to Hurricane Katrina, out-of-control government spending and public discontent with the war in Iraq.