Posts

Doolittle’s Payoff

Back when Rove quit was canned quit to spend time with his family that had gone away to college, he gave the WSJ a sweet retrospective. He attributed the inaccuracy of his "math" during the 2006 election to his inability to get rid of scandal-ridden Republicans before their scandals broke out.

He says Republican Chris Shays and Independent-Democrat Joe Lieberman survived in Connecticut despite supporting the war, while Republicans who were linked to corruption or were complacent lost. His biggest error, Mr. Rove says, was in not working soon enough to replace Republicans tainted by scandal.

And while it’s hard to distinguish the scandal-ridden Republican retirees from among the mob of retiring Republicans, some key scandal-ridden Republicans are retiring, including Domenici, Renzi, and Doolittle.

I’m particularly interested in Doolittle’s thought process. Less than two months ago, a defiant Doolittle admitted that he was going to use the William Jefferson precedent to stay out of jail.

Now, Rep. John Doolittle, R-Roseville, has crawled into the freezer with Jefferson.

On Dec. 19 Doolittle said he is challenging the constitutionality of subpoenas, issued by a federal grand jury, which seek congressional office records related to his relationship with convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

It’s purely a strategy of delay. "My attorney tells me that this issue alone – the constitutional issue presented by those subpoenas … is going to take one to two years to resolve," Doolittle said.

But then less than a month after that–on January 10–Doolittle announced he would not run for reelection. Poor John Doolittle won’t have a Congressional freezer in which to hide the evidence of his next bribe.

Which is why I’m interested in the donors to Doolittle’s defense fund (h/t TP).

Republican U.S. Rep. John Doolittle collected nearly $35,000 in his legal defense fund during the fourth quarter of last year, including contributions from a potential candidate to replace him, former U.S. Rep. Doug Ose.

[snip]

Ose donated $2,000 to Doolittle’s legal fund, according to a filing Wednesday, and another $2,000 from his family business, Enlow Ose & Associates. Doolittle also got $5,000 from House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Don’t get me wrong–Doolittle clearly needs all the money he can get to pay his lawyers. But doesn’t this look like a little extra persuasion? So that maybe this time around, Rove can at least do his "math"a little more accurately?