Informed Speculation

By now, you’ve probably heard that Tom Delay is not going to seek reelection:

“I’m a realist. I’ve been around awhile. I can evaluate political situations,” DeLay told TIME at his kitchen table in Sugar Land, a former sugar plantation in suburban Houston. Bluebonnets are blooming along the highways. “I feel that I could have won the race. I just felt like I didn’t want to risk the seat and that I can do more on the outside of the House than I can on the inside right now. I want to continue to fight for the conservative cause. I want to continue to work for a Republican majority.”

Asked if he had done anything illegal or immoral in public office, DeLay replied curtly, “No.” Asked if he’d done anything immoral, he said with a laugh, “We’re all sinners.” Asked what he would do differently, he said, “Nothing.” He denied having failed to adequately supervise members of his staff, even though two of his former aides have pleaded guilty to committing crimes while on his staff. “Two people violated my trust over 21 years,” he said. “I guarantee you if other offices were under the scrutiny I’ve been under in the last 10 years, with the Democrat Party announcing that they’re going to destroy me, destroy my reputation, and that’s how they’re going to get rid of me, I guarantee you you’re going to find, out of hundreds of people, somebody that’s probably done something wrong.”

John Nichols of the Nation gives the far-left spin to Delay’s departure…

UPDATE 8:30 a.m.: What’s next for TX-22? The Carpetbagger Report considers the possibilities…

UPDATE 2 8:37 a.m.: John McIntyre sees the Delay retirement as good news for Republicans, since it removes the public face of the ‘culture of corruption’; NBC’s First Read agrees…

The Instapundit commenting at The Guardian(!):

I’m happy to see him leave for other reasons: He was the architect of the Republicans’ “K Street strategy” – a program of incorporating lobbyists and interest groups into the process of governance – that has been disastrous for Republican ideals.

DeLay’s defenders say that the K Street strategy is merely a reprise of what Democrats have been doing for decades, and they have a point. But Democrats are supposed to be the party of Big Government. Republicans are not, and the K Street strategy has led to a serious abandonment of their principles. (DeLay lost me back before the scandals broke, when he pronounced, inexplicably, that there was no fat left to cut in the federal budget.) I don’t have much hope that DeLay’s departure will do much tug the GOP back toward its principles, but it can’t hurt.