The Democrats are trying to make us believe that their attacks upon Majority Leader Delay are motivated by a desire to purify politics. The reality, of course, is that they are just trying to bring down an effective Republican leader. We've long suspected that the legal attacks on Mr. Delay were a political witch-hunt, now we have full confirmation:

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, who denies partisan motives for his investigation of a political group founded by Republican leader Tom DeLay, was the featured speaker last week at a Democratic fund-raiser where he spoke directly about the congressman. A newly formed Democratic political action committee, Texas Values in Action Coalition, hosted the May 12 event in Dallas to raise campaign money to take control of the state Legislature from the GOP, organizers said. ...

In his remarks, Earle likened DeLay to a bully and spoke about political corruption and the investigation involving DeLay, the House majority leader from Sugar Land, according to a transcript supplied by Earle. ...

It is absolutely clear that Earle is attacking Delay on the legal front as part of an orchestrated Democratic plan to wreck the career of Tom Delay and, by extension, intimidate all Republicans. This is of a piece with the vandalism and other outrages we witnessed against Republican offices and Republican volunteers during last year's election. Back in 2004, they were trying to make it seem dangerous to be a volunteer Republican by vandalising Republican offices; doing this in the hopes that by discouraging GOP volunteers, they would depress GOP turnout.

Here in 2005, what they are trying to do is intimidate elected GOP officeholders; the message contained within Earle's indictments is "don't thwart the Democrats, or you'll pay". It is because of the overt and disgusting political nature of the attacks upon Delay that we can't afford the slightest weakness: we must fight the Democrats tooth and nail. Only by doing this will be encourage GOPers who might be wavering under pressure; they must know that we'll fight back.