Newt Gringrich II, The Sequel.
In order for Republicans to close ranks, they would have to have a little backbone.
Allowing their strong House leaders to be picked off one at a time is an unforgiveable Republican Party weakness.
Democrats don't need to draw their daggers. Republicans are more than eager to stab their own in the back.
"Allowing their strong House leaders to be picked off one at a time is an unforgiveable Republican Party weakness."
Exactly.
This editorial makes this point very clear:
Keep DeLay, or pay the price
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1382611/posts
"They should remember the political maxim that while the law will take care of the guilty, when a politician is innocent of the charges being thrown at him, he can only be brought down by his own side. I have been in a lot of political fights -- from the Goldwater campaign in '64, to almost all of 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.
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 two 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. That's the thing about losing those organs."