Another masterpiece from Matthew Cooper and Mike Allen....

[kentuck]

Was this fed them by the White House? Did the idea not cross their minds that maybe they were being used??
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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1147153,00.html


<snip>

Even before DeLay's announcement that he would abdicate his leadership post, top Bush advisers tell TIME, the President's inner circle always treated DeLay as a necessary burden. He may have had an unmatched grip on the House and Washington lobbyists, but DeLay is not the kind of guy—in background and temperament—the President feels comfortable with. Of the former exterminator, a Republican close to the President's inner circle says, "They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He's seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with."

<snip>
But with the possibility that DeLay could be indicted in the Abramoff case, the Administration fears that the scandal could tarnish all Republicans and even hand the House to the Democrats. "They're worried about the Congress," an adviser said after talking to White House aides, "and they're worried about themselves." Although DeLay's forfeiture of his leadership post makes things easier for the White House, the Abramoff saga will continue to be a problem. Bracing for the worst, Administration officials obtained from the Secret Service a list of all the times Abramoff entered the White House complex, and they scrambled to determine the reason for each visit. Bush aides are also trying to identify all the photos that may exist of the two men together. Abramoff attended Hanukkah and holiday events at the White House, according to an aide who has seen the list. Press secretary Scott McClellan said Abramoff might have attended large gatherings with Bush but added, "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him."

...more

[Cha]

1. Wouldn't you love to be

a spider on the wall in the room where delay is reading this?..

"They have always seen him as beneath them, more blue collar. He's seen as a useful servant, not someone you would want to vacation with."

How anyone could be beneath bush is a pretty neat trick.

[asjr]

2. They may be sorry they made that statement. I have an

idea if Delay knows he is going down he will not go quietly.

[lavenderdiva]

5. my thoughts exactly!

He doesn't strike me as someone who would just let at statement like this go.... After all, he wasn't known as 'The Hammer' for nothin'!

[Cha]

7. Sounds like jack abramOFF didn't

have a problem vacationing with him on the links at St Andrews in Scotland.

They are so bending over backwards to distance themselves from delay now that they may be screwing with future plea bargainings.

[NI4NI]

6. in this case "beneath them" means

the bottom slime that's underneath pond scum.

[peacetalksforall]

3. Isn't this ridiculous? Lily white George. Lily white Republicans. As

phoney as it gets. Beneath them? What a joke? How do you measure layers of a sewer or pig pen?

[SeveneightyWhoa]

4. Riiight.

"Even before DeLay's announcement that he would abdicate his leadership post, top Bush advisers tell TIME, the President's inner circle always treated DeLay as a necessary burden."

Oh, so now they're distancing themselves from DeLay -- after the fact. How convenient. :eyes:

[Cha]

8. I just thought of a quote that

I won't be able to find right now but it went something like this..

bush: "I have every confidence in tom delay". Hasn't bush said that about every criminal in the gop party that's come under indictment, lately?

[punpirate]

9. Wonderful bit of reporting...

... for asswipes.

Didn't someone here post a picture today of Bush and DeLay golfing together, with Bush manning the wheel of the golf cart with sub-tropical foliage in the background? So much for vacationing separate and apart.

Didn't DeLay push through virtually every piece of legislation that the Bushies wanted? Lessee, umm, no vetos yet.

Wasn't it DeLay who began the roughshod run on Republicans controlling the Texas legislature while Bush was still governor, and which gave Bush a rock-solid Republican majority in the House?

Wasn't it Bush who only recently said, contrary to all the protestations before of not commenting on active cases (other cases, that is), that DeLay was "innocent?"

Of course, the great hilarity here is that DeLay has been taking enough money to live just as well or better than Bush, but the WH now describes him as "blue collar?" I think there are going to be quite a few union carpenters and electricians and plumbers who are going to be very, very rankled by that remark.

Someone recently said that this WH will be defined mostly by its incompetence. I think that goes for its PR skills, too. :)

[Rose Siding]

10. "Blue collar" is beneath them? Like a "servant"?

Hear that, everyone who wanted to drink a beer with this freak?

Even this attempt at distance shows them in the WORST light.

[KT2000]

11. Did they let Babs

out of the attic for that quote??
Yikes - "beneath them - more blue collar - not someone you would want to vacation with."
Really, it sounds like he has put his crazy old mom in chrage of the PR!!

[BuyingThyme]

12. I don't disagree. The Bushes are elitist, old-money fascists.

They see DeLay as one of their hands-on mobsters. They use him, and hold him close, but don't share secrets with him.

Frist, on the other hand, may be a different story.