I live in Congressman Mike Turner's district.

Following Josh Marshall's instructions, I contacted Mike Turner's office. I politely asked how he voted on the Delay issue, allowing party leaders to keep their posts even if they are under indictment.

The Dayton office had to call the DC office and get back to me. I was told it was a private vote and the congressman doesn't have to say how he voted. I started to get snippy. Well of course he can say if he wants to. He can just announce, I voted this way or that. Right? I was told again that he doesn't have to do that. Regaining my composure, I simply asked if he was refusing to say how he voted. And I was told that was correct.

Congressman Mike Turner. Coward.

Again, back to Josh Marshall.

Marshall today on his blog published the transcript of Delay's press conference proclaiming himself as pure as God's fingers, to paraphrase John Proctor in The Crucible. And Delay claims that the indictments are partisan.

Clear case of the Republicans counting on the public's lack of knowledge of basic civics. A prosecutor, no matter how partisan, can't bring an indictment on his or her own. A grand jury does that. And grand juries are not partisan. They hear evidence and decide if a case should go forward. Then it goes to trial.

That's an indictment, Tom.

Now is Mr. DeLay implying that these grand juries are stacked with liberal democrats out to get him?

And they accuse US of conspiracy theories?

I began these thoughts on another diary, revised and expanded here.  It was brought to my mind by RT's post of the Washington Monthly article.  

I am really impressed but at the same time disgusted by the way the Republican party has appropriated words for their own purposes, and then managed to get their own appropriations of these words into the general journalistic lexicon.

Here's just one example I pulled from a headline, from the Washington Monthly:

How the GOP's anti-elitism could ruin America's economy

Now, the Republicans are anti a lot of things. They are anti-environment. They are anti-child. They are anti-choice. They are anti-education. They are anti-science.

They are hardly anti-elite.

But they have consistently painted artists and entertainers as "elite" so as to make themselves seem more populist, more of the common man. Of course it's bullshit. But it has stuck around so much and been repeated so often that now even respectable news outlets like Washington Monthly are using it.

Now to me, and I think to most thinking people, "elite" means Harvard. Yale. Million dollar homes. Investor class. The wealthiest Americans. But to the other side, it means: movie makers and university professors who oppose our policies to create more wealth for the wealthiest Americans.

But as this Washington Monthly headline shows, their meaning has taken over.

Same with "values". But I sense that our side is ready to fight for that word.

(Also posted at www.readcom.blogspot.com)