GOP Better Stand Behind Delay

While some Republicans appear to be pulling a Neville Chamberlain with the Democrats on Tom Delay, Tony Blankley in the Washington Times writes in a scathing op-ed that the GOP will do so at their own peril.

I have been in a lot of political fights — from the Goldwater campaign in 1964 to almost all of Ronald Reagan's fights, to slugging it out side by side with my old boss, Newt Gingrich, back in the '90s — and I've never been in one where sacrificing innocent comrades helped in the long run. Human sacrifice had been almost completely extinguished with the passing of the Aztecs — until the Republican Party came along.

Mr. DeLay has been the most effective majority whip in living memory, never having lost a vote. He has engineered passage of every vital piece of Bush legislation as majority leader (sometimes with as little as a single hard-sought vote difference). By his tough work in Texas he has almost assured Republican control of the House for at least another decade.

If a party can be stampeded by phony charges and a run of shoddy stories in whorish newspapers into dumping their most effective congressional leader, I wouldn't give 2 cents for their near-term future. A party that would voluntarily cut off its own testicles and FedEx them to their opponent as a trophy, is not likely to manifest any regenerative powers.

It couldn't be said any better.