Power of the (Gambler's) Purse

Posted by: Jorge Rome Guy Alssop
on April 29, 2005 @ 12:44 PM EST [Post Comment]

Denny Hastert has decided to "pivot" on the House Ethics Committee rules, and, true enough, the decision to rescind the revised regs is a pivotal one. Talk of the town is that the GOP needs to clear the decks as far as the Ethics stink is concerned for two reasons--first, the consensus has emerged that reversal now will cost less than stubbornness carried through to the mid-term elections; second, concern has set in that Tom DeLay won't be able to clear his name without the seal of approval of a functioning Ethics Committee.

Problems? Sure. The winner-take-all attitude that still stiffens spines and curls lips on the Hill has made both Bolton and DeLay look like do-or-die martyrs in the making, as institutionally capable of dragging down whoever comes to their rescue as they are of countering a Democratic coup de presse with the fanatical support of the closed ranks. Congress is playing with fire when individuals become totems for whole movements and concepts that reach backward and forward in time by decades and even centuries. The questions of power, attitude, and danger raised by any number of inside scoops on the two embattled Republicans are eternal, and they have turned many a golden boy to a rancid pile in much shorter order than anything we are likely to see here in the months ahead.

Sometimes the brass-and-wood-panels world of high politics approaches the bent universe of another realm full of marble halls and felt tables. When power is a gamble and policy turns to pure politics, everyone has something to gain, and only the highest of rollers have something to lose.

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