"It's about time."

Well. It’s official. Tom Delay has been indicted for something we have known all along. He is crooked. How the world has ignored this fact for as long as it has is a testament to the power of one-party rule and media intimidation. My response to this news is, “It’s about time.”

My response to the headlines that the SEC has opened a complete investigation of Bill Frist’s financial stock holdings and dealings is the very same, “It’s about time.” I repeat the mantra when I think of the impending indictment of Karl Rove and the criminality that is being exposed. Incompetence. Corruption. Cronyism. It’s all there and has been in full view. Yes. “It’s about time.”

It seems that BushCo and its Republican Party subsidiaries are crumbling under the weight of their pathological corruption. The only detail remaining to be seen is how far will it all go. How deep into the fabric of the congressional Republican power structure will the unraveling thread extend? Have they knitted sufficient firewalls to protect state and county GOP party machinery? I ask these questions because I, along with many other ePluribus Media members, have been investigating the extent of the Republican Media Complex for the past six months and have an understanding of how they weave the relationships of money and favors that is the fabric of their organization.

I was taught by an acting teacher long ago one of the great lessons. She told me that, “Your strength is your weakness.” At first I didn’t get it, but it became clear as I grew older and it’s the best piece of wisdom I have ever received. In my case, she meant that as an actor I would always play to my strengths and, as a result, not work on my weaknesses. In the short run, she argued, I may book a sitcom or soap or movie and make out quite well…for a while. But, without the skills to play other parts, where would I be when the public tired of my act? A great example of an actor who never let himself get pegged into one type of role is Dustin Hoffman. Think of how he challenged himself and grew as an actor, and, as a result, has had a long and prosperous career.

Now, what has Dustin Hoffman’s career got to do with the fall of the Republican Party? Nothing directly, but everything in the big picture.

You see, the biggest strength of the Republican Media Complex may also prove to be its biggest weakness. Those of us who have been looking have been forced to admire, in a perverse way, how integrated the RMC has become. It’s the main reason they have been so effective. The central control of money and message has been their strong suit and has led to this Republican age. It certainly hasn’t been their policies and platform. Those have been on the losing side for decades, but by building interconnected and interdependent money and power relationships throughout the country, they have managed to craft an astoundingly consistent, well financed and winning organization.

For example. All money travels through the Abramoff-Delay, pay-to-play wing of the Republican Party. We discovered how the message, even in local races, is dictated from Karl Rove’s office. The media distribution, too, is controlled centrally. How many times have we seen talking points emerge from the White House, then distributed to Rush and Sean for afternoon delivery and finally to O’Riley for nighttime repetition only to have it appear in the MSM the next day. This is not done by accident. This is how they do things. Top down, centrally controlled and funded, with favors and return favors being the yarn that holds it all together. That is their strength.

BUT, as my acting teacher taught me…IT’S ALSO THEIR WEAKNESS. And now comes the fun part. Hopefully with the aid of some good prosecutors and investigators, we will get to watch that great big sweater of interconnected favoritism all come apart…because they knitted it for strength, never noticing that they were also building their weakness.

You see, they knitted their sweater with few, long single threads instead of many short ones. As a result, all it will take is for one of them to break for it all to become one pile of yarn.

Personally, I intend to grab my popcorn and watch, as their once overpowering strength becomes their undoing weakness.

“It’s about time.”