The No. 3 Republican in the Senate said Sunday that embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay needs to answer questions about his ethics and "let the people then judge for themselves."
Sen. Rick Santorum's comments seem to reflect the nervousness among congressional Republicans about the fallout from the increased scrutiny into DeLay's way of doing business.
DeLay, R-Texas, has been dogged in recent months by reports of possible ethics violations. There have been questions about his overseas travel, campaign payments to family members and his connections to lobbyists who are under investigation.
"I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves," said Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.
"But from everything I've heard, again, from the comments and responding to those, is everything he's done was according to the law," Santorum told ABC's "This Week."
"Now you may not like some of the things he's done," Santorum said. "That's for the people of his district to decide, whether they want to approve that kind of behavior or not."
Look closely. Santorum is not hanging Mr. DeLay out to dry, but he artfully put distance between himself and Mr. DeLay. And it seems that some of the reason for that distance are the comments by DeLay concerning our judiciary. Everyone here remembers Delay noting that:
"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said, raising the prospect of impeaching members of a separate and independent branch of government. Later, he complained of "an arrogant and out of control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the president."
Well, on Friday both Bush and Frist affirmed their support of an independent judiciary, something Santorum didn't touch upon, but these statements by arguably three of the top five Republicans in the land, all distancing themselves from DeLay, indicate first that DeLay may have rough going, and soon, but also that Rick Santorum may be in for the fight of his Senate life in 2006.
Note, however, that none of these comments by Frist, Cheney, Santorum and Bush are making their fundamentalist base happy. In Washington where many of the Conservative Right Wing Clerics are meeting this weekend, the Republican leadership is taking some very big hits. And that just might be a good thing. I'm particularly pleased with the Religion Journal's John Lofton's lashing out at virtually any Republican politician and think tank, including the Heritage Foundation.
I love the smell of Republican meltdown on a Sunday morning.
