t r u t h o u t - Frank Rich | In the Beginning, There Was Abramoff

Classic Frank Rich. Read it in full:

In the Beginning, There Was Abramoff

'Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort. Terri Schiavo is not on life support.'
- Tom DeLay, March 20, 2005

If you believed Tom DeLay then, you no doubt believe now that the deposed House majority leader is only on 'temporary' leave from his powerful perch in Washington and that he'll soon bounce back, laughing all the way, from a partisan witch hunt that unjustly requires his brief discomfort in a Texas courtroom.

Those who still live in the reality-based community, however, may sense they're watching the beginning of the end of something big. It's not just Mr. DeLay, a k a the Hammer, who is on life support, but a Washington establishment whose infatuation with power and money has contaminated nearly every limb of government and turned off a public that by two to one finds the country on the wrong track.