We never did get a comprehensive look, from anyone inside any corporate media outlet, as to why exactly six or more administration sources were let out to dish on DeLay just at that time. Media outlets being manipulated do not necessarily like to talk about the manipulation, especially while it is still ongoing. My own guess is that BushCo’s dislike of DeLay stems at least partly from DeLay’s genuine opposition to casinos. The Bush team, never particularly big on morals to start with, tends to look with an especially jaundiced eye on anyone who might cut down the engorged revenues and regressive reverse taxation of gambling. (The GOP has employed exactly parallel tactics in states as different as Texas and Maryland, to institute bigtime gaming.) So they thought temporarily that they would kill two birds with one stone: get rid of DeLay’s increasing legal and political problems, while reassuring their corporate or criminal backers that gambling was not going to be seriously derailed by any GOP politician, at least not by any with enough position and clout to matter.

Be that as it may, it is rather a tribute to DeLay that he refused to stay dumped. Whatever you think of his policies, you have to admit that the man has grit and tenacity, spirit and resolution as Jane Austen would put it. Not only did he keep going, not only did he fight back; regardless of the size of the splash when he went over, he climbed back onboard. Next thing we knew, there was Bush taking DeLay with him on trips.

Wrong call, of course. Bush, more firmly linked to DeLay than ever, is now sinking himself. The life raft has sprung a leak, the life vest is loaded with bricks, the inflated inner tube has turned into an anchor – pick your own metaphor. The two of them are tied in cronyism and corruption so extensive that the whole exceeds the sum of its parts.

DeLay had another way to go. Instead of re-establishing himself at the White House with its baggage from the Iraq war, from unanswered 9/11 questions, and from the ongoing gutting of the middle class, he could have developed more constructive ties. Instead of re-ingratiating himself with the little crew that long ago made its indifference toward him plain, that betrayed him and insulted him after he helped redistrict Texas to save the GOP margin in the House, he could have sought good help. He could have reached out, for example, to the man whose seat he got in Congress, Ron Paul (R-Texas).

We do not hear Paul’s name around DC much. A genuine conservative and therefore an opponent of the Iraq invasion, a sincere anti-abortionist and therefore not linked with the funds-funneling Ralph Reeds and Grover Norquists, Paul has not been interviewed and talk-showed the way administration apologists tend to be. Genuine independence, probity and judgment will do that to you on television. The late, great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Texas) was similarly off the talk-show circuit.

DeLay could have done the country some good, even if he individually still had to go down. He could have joined Ron Paul in opposing the war. With his connections, he could have exposed some of the exchange between corporate cronyism and bogus militarism, between inappropriate favors and government surveillance, between the White House power grab and the erosion of state and local effectiveness. Two or three strokes of the pen from Tom DeLay could have strengthened the grassroots in every part of the nation, starting with Texas. He has already moved to improve mass transit in Houston, where a little improvement is a lot.

But no. With a choice clear as a cartoon, between the tiny figures of Ron Paul in white robe with halo on one shoulder and George W. Bush in red union suit with pitchfork on the other, Mr. DeLay went with Bush.