HILLARY’S WAR ON DELAY

The most powerful Congressmen have, in addition to their regular offices in one of the House Office Buildings (Cannon, Longworth, or Rayburn) on the south side of Capitol Hill, a private office in the Capitol itself. It was in such an office earlier this week that I asked a member of the House leadership about the MSM (mainstream media)/Democrat vendetta against his colleague, Tom DeLay.

“Hillary’s fingerprints are all over it,” came his response. “She has no intention of having to deal with an opposition party controlling the House as her husband did for six years and Ronald Reagan did for eight. She has a very clear plan for seizing control of the entire United States government, which includes orchestrating Democrat control of the House in 2006 so it is firmly in place when she is elected president in 2008.”

This will ensure passage of the very first item on her presidential agenda, HillaryCare – the nationalization of medicine in America. That of course is just for openers. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that Hillary is running – not will run, but already is running – for president in 2008. “This should be obvious to everyone,” he said, “but what is not obvious is that’s not all she’s doing. Her focus and her goals go far beyond just the White House.”

It is, then, at Hillary’s direction that the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the entire Liberal Media apparatus are waging a relentless war upon House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The charges against him are either inconsequential or hypocritical – huge front page outrage stories, for example, about him going on a foreign “junket” with no criticism of Democrats who were on the very same trip, such as Nancy Pelosi. Last week the WaPo ran this above-the-fold headline piece thousands of words long that was pure recycled froth with no substance whatever.

That’s because the substance doesn’t matter – all that matters is the attacks themselves, that they be kept up until more and more spineless pencil-necks like Connecticut Republicans Chris Shays and Rob Simmons break and crack under pressure. Hillary knows exactly what she is doing. Target the strongest force the GOP has in Congress – DeLay – keep targeting until Republicans surrender and retreat in disarray, then pick up the easy pieces in 2006.

Last fall, my wife and I had a very enjoyable Sunday brunch with Tom and Christine DeLay near their home in Sugarland, Texas. He couldn’t wait for the elections to be over with and the next Congressional session to begin. “As House Whip, I’ve been able to play a role in shaping our Party’s agenda,” he told me. “But next year as Majority Leader, I’ll be able to create our agenda, and map out where Republicans can take America for years to come.”

Hillary’s undercover war on DeLay has now derailed that agenda. “Politics and the media abhor vacuums as much as nature,” my Congressional friend explained. “The New York Times has the space to run these headline hit pieces on Tom because we’ve been thrown off-track, and are not seizing those headlines ourselves, promoting pro-prosperity, pro-America programs.”

Instead, he continued, “we Republicans snipe at each other over the President’s attempt at Social Security reform. Or just look at these Alice-in-the-Looking-Glass hearings for John Bolton. We are actually letting the Democrats get away with making Bolton the issue, and not their defense of the most corrupt and scandal-ridden international organization on the planet, the United Nations. We just refuse to take the offensive and put the Democrats on the defensive where they belong. It’s so bad that the Democrats actually got away with getting a lot of Americans upset at Tom for trying to save Terri Schiavo’s life!”

So here’s how bad it is. Only a few Conservative leaders in Washington – like Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and David Keene of the American Conservative Union – recognize the stakes in the War on DeLay. Next week, for example, there will be a private conference of several hundred conservative Republican leaders from all over the country here in Washington – and not a single speech or strategy session is scheduled regarding it.

Unless these guys figure it out and fast, Hillary’s War on DeLay will succeed. Unless DeLay’s colleagues hang together with him, they will hang separately in 2006 – and Hillary’s path to the White House will be cleared.