4/6: Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em

This a.m. the New York Times and Washington Post both front stories about Maj. Leader Tom DeLay (R). The Times reports that DeLay's wife and daughter received "unusually generous" compensation for campaign work; the Post reports that a '97 DeLay trip to Russia was underwritten by lobbyists through a "mysterious" Bahamian shell company. Both are getting heavy play: it's a big deal to the left blogosphere, who don't like DeLay and have been eagerly watching the drip, drip of ethics charges against him.

The conservative blogs have no overriding political story today. Among the discussions taking place: Captains Quarters' tangle with Canadian censorship law, the passing of novelist Saul Bellow, and widening speculation that a "GOP talking points memo" (which supposedly had GOP leaders claiming the Terri Schiavo case was good politics) is in fact a fraud. The latter is partly fueled by a Washington Times report, an instance of blogs keeping a story alive long enough for the MSM to take a second look.

One story drawing outrage from both sides is a comment by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R) to the effect that he would like to use the criminal rather than regulatory process for dealing with "indecency" on cable and the airwaves. Other than that -- and some follow-up on Sen. John Cornyn's (R) controversial remarks on judicial activism -- there isn't much overlap today. The right isn't especially animated about the DeLay stories, and few so far have vigorously defend him. Meanwhile, the left isn't much interested in the stories on the right. As for the memo, it failed to generate much heat when it first surfaced; the left dismissed it then and seems barely aware of it today.

TRACKBACKS: Sense(nbrennner)less Crimes

Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:

• Lefties linking to one or both of the DeLay stories: Eschaton; Political Animal; MyDD; Hullabaloo; TalkLeft; DailyKos; Oliver Willis; Peking Duck.
  

  Righties linking to one or both: Captain's Quarters; RedState.

  >> Liberal Duncan Black notes that the Washington Post's sources included "those involved in planning DeLay's trip," and adds: "The story here isn't so much that DeLay's about to go down, it's that obviously he's being knifed by people on his own side ... Anyway, should've been obvious something like this was coming. Even the WSJ editorial board sent out a telegraph about a week ago." Josh Marshall makes a similar point. Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "Maybe so. Perhaps they've figured out that they'd rather take their lumps now than during an election year." IL-based ArchPundit: "The question appears to me to be how hard does he fight and who does he take down with him. He's a mean bastard, and I'm certain he has a scorched earth plan for those who turn on him in this case. Given the other scandals, he won't be the only one touched."

  >> At the conservative Beltway Buzz, Eric Pfeiffer writes that the Times "failed to mention two critical points in their story. First and foremost, the practice of paying family members to work on campaigns is not illegal. Several members of both parties do so. Secondly ... Harry Reid has done the same thing and receives zero mention in the story, as have House members Jesse Jackson Jr., Bart Stupak and Gene Taylor, all Democrats."

• A Hollywood Reporter story on statements by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R) that "criminal prosecution" would be a "more efficient way" to handle indecency on cable, has caught plenty of attention. Among the linkers: Jeff Jarvis; The Agitator; The Spoons Experience; TalkLeft.

  >> Liberal Tapped: "Quite the crackdown, huh? Maybe, but maybe not." Liberal orgs. "have been advocating something called a la carte cable" which would force cable providers "to allow customers to pick exactly which channels they want to subscribe to and only pay for those stations, rather than bundling whole big groups of channels together. That's bad for cable broadcasters ... Sensenbrenner's stance ... strikes me as a neat trick to keep the Christian/business GOP coalition together at one of its stress points."

  >> Right Wing News: Sensenbrenner "must not have the word 'overkill' in his vocabulary ... Imagine someone actually being sent to jail for making a "lewd" comment on TV that other Americans on the internet or in bars, sports arenas, or around the water cooler could say with impunity ... Sensenbrenner & company have been downhill skiing on the slippery slope of indecency regulations and it's time they were told to brake hard."

  >> The lone pro-Sensenbrenner argument comes from Neo-Libertarian, who criticizes Jarvis' take: " It's already a criminal offense, it's just that right now the FCC handles it instead of the criminal courts. ... But Jeff Jarvis clearly only saw 'criminal' and 'court' and assumed Sensenbrenner wanted to increase the punishment to include imprisonment. Sensenbrenner never said anything about jail time in any of the articles I've read on the subject. ... Moreover, it would decrease the power of the FCC. Sounds pretty cool to me."

• A front page Washington Times survey puts 55 GOP sens. on the record as saying "they have never seen" the Schiavo memo, and that it "was not crafted or distributed by him or her." Linking: Betsy Newmark; Mudville Gazette; Joe's Dartblog; PowerPundit

  >> Conservative Power Line: "The Washington Post isn't the perpetrator of the underlying offense here, but it is in the middle of its own Watergate-style cover-up. Who will guard the guardians?"

JUDGES: Cornyn Dogged

The Corner posts text of a 4/5 floor address by Cornyn, clarifying his earlier remarks, in which he says: "As a former judge myself for 13 years, who has a number of close personal friends who still serve on the bench today, I am outraged by recent acts of courthouse violence. I certainly hope that no one will construe my remarks on Monday otherwise. Considered in context, I don't think a reasonable listener or reader could."

Centrist Andrew Sullivan: "Cornyn retracts. Good for him. Just ignore the blather about being taken out of context. He wasn't. He contributed to anti-judicial emotionalism; and he has retracted his inflammatory remarks."

Liberal Gadflyer: "Here's Cornyn's world: he will defend to the death the right to own a gun. When a judge's husband and mother are murdered with a gun in the hands of a mentally disturbed individual, it's because the murderer was frustrated with the politically motivated decisions of the judge. What should we control, according to Cornyn? Not guns. 'Activist judges.'" BeldarBlog defends him: "As the chief law enforcement officer of the State of Texas, he certainly had no record of encouraging lawlessness. He has no history of demagoguery. Lumping him in with nuts at either the left or right extremes simply isn't justified based on his past record. He's neither a Tom DeLay nor a Robert Byrd."

CAP's ThinkProgress hosts video of Cornyn's Senate floor speech.

Tangentially, DLC's Marshall Wittman "wonders why the elephant is in such a state about confirming conservative judges after the Schiavo episode. After all, wasn't it conservative judges that ruled against another review of the case defying the wishes of the Republican Congress? It seems that the Delay crowd has a fundamental beef with Federalist 78 and Marbury v. Madison."

LEFT VS. RIGHT: Who's Better?

David Brooks' 4/5 New York Times column on the diversity of ideas on the right compared to the left is much-discussed. Brooks writes: "The major conservative magazines -- The Weekly Standard, National Review, Reason, The American Conservative, The National Interest, Commentary -- agree on almost nothing." Guest-blogging at &c., New Republic's Jon Chait would add the Wall Street Journal and Washington Times editorial pages, and disagrees: "Even if you follow Brooks's bizarre definition and include Reason and The American Conservative, you'll get some dissent on judicial nominations and the war and a less worshipful view of Bush as a man. But you'll still have basic agreement on all the major domestic policy questions."

But liberal Mark Schmitt is inclined to agree with Brooks: "Many of those who want to build up the 'progressive intellectual infrastructure' see the right-wing institutions ... as simply part of a disciplined message infrastructure." But in fact "those institutions are loci of great internal debate. Does that debate then lead to ideological clarity, which can be the basis for greater partisan unity later? Absolutely."

Also linking: The left-leaning Crooked Timber, right-leaning Volokh Conspiracy, and libertarian Hit and Run.

Meanwhile, Chait and National Review's Jonah Goldberg wrap up their argument about left-right superiority at the NR/TNR joint venture OpinionDuel.com.

BLOGS VS. THE WORLD: Aye Aye, Captain

The Canadian ban (see the 4/5 Blogometer) of conservative Captains Quarters -- run by MN blogger Ed Morrissey -- gets MSM legitimization from the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz (albeit in his web column). Following the story over multiple posts has been right-leaning Instapundit (as he would say, just keep scrolling), focusing not just on the issue of Captain's Quarters' fight with Canada but also the Canadian "publication ban." Most following the story fall on the right-hand side of the blog world: Red State; Winds of Change; Patrick Ruffini; Michael Greenspan. But a few liberals are following as well: Yowling from the Fencepost.

The Nation's David Corn writes in his online column and at his personal blog that he was disinvited from speaking at a 2-year college in Northern AR, supposedly because of "an ad for anti-Bush gear." Asks Corn: "Am I being too sensitive if I suspect politics is afoot and that the administration of a school located deep in Red State territory pulled the plug on my appearance because of my views?"

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: The Changing Newspaper?

Personal Democracy Forum points out SC's Bluffton Today which has "user generated material from the get-go, including free classifieds. It comes from an established media company, and the site looks terrific. ... Everyone gets a blog. Not just staffers, but everyone in the community. LeMonde (France) and the Mail and Guardian (South Africa) are doing this, too. ... This is big news, folks."

IN THE STATES: Welcome To Food City!

Commonwealth Conservative posts pictures of a NASCAR stock car with a sign for VA AG Jerry Kilgore's (R) GOV campaign, and later clarifies: "The Jerry Kilgore campaign for Governor did NOT pay for that. It was a surprise gesture made by Food City -- sponsors of the Bristol race, the 'Food City 500.'"

OBIT: Saul Of The Earth

The New York Times obit for author Bellow is the starting point for a number of tributes, mostly on the starboard side of the blogosphere. John J. Miller writes at The Corner: "The NYT obituary chides him for once asking 'Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans?' Notably, it is a question that neither the NYT nor anybody as far as I know ever has answered adequately." Others paying tribute: Power Line; Roger L. Simon; Bloggledygook; Brothers Judd; Ann Althouse.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY

Libertarian Julian Sanchez considers the recent buzz around a university study showing universities have moved left in recent decades. Sanchez finds the numbers at first "quite implausible: It claims that the proportion of self-identified left or liberal profs has risen from 39 to 72 percent from 1984 to 1999 while the proportion of right or conservative profs dropped from 34 to 15 percent." Sanchez theorizes, "it's probably the shift within academia that's most likely to have produced this sort of effect on perception. In 1984, 'left' didn't mean, say, Cass Sunstein. It meant Michel Foucault and hardcore Marxists."

LEST WE FORGET

Lefty "Billmon" at Whiskey Bar parodies TV's all-Pope-all-the-time coverage by assembling a fake TV schedule, including "Soft Balls With Chris Matthews": "Chris interviews a world-famous expert on Catholicism -- himself -- and a highly respected leader of the American Catholic community -- also himself -- on the potential impact of John Paul II's death on the 2012 presidential race. (Warning: extreme footage of Hillary Rodham Clinton) (In monologue)