The image is reminiscent of Tom DeLay from the Republican former House majority leader's mug shot. (DeLay was ultimately convicted on conspiracy and money-laundering charges.)

We wonder whether the smiles here are meant to convey confidence or an image of innocence. If so, neither man succeeded.

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McHenry has been one of the most completely shameless of House Republicans since his arrival in Congress, in 2005, when he immediately and publicly endorsed Tom DeLay's brilliant plan to exempt himself from ethics rules as his connections to Jack Abramoff began to end his career. But he was born to be cheerfully corrupt: He's a product of the College Republicans, an organization that trains little Lee Atwaters, Karl Roves and Grover Norquists in the arts of scorched-earth campaigning and wholly irresponsible "governing" on behalf of the monied interests that bought you your job. The ethos is win by any means necessary, legal or quasi-legal (or worse, as long as you never get caught), and McHenry was very good at that, according to Benjamin Wallace-Wells' memorable profile of the then-freshman in the Washington Monthly.

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The sentencing of DeLay, once one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington and the majority leader of the House of Representatives, was largely ignored because of the aftermath of the mass shooting in Arizona.

But it's an extraordinary story -- and one that's not quite over. When he was indicted in Texas in 2005, DeLay's political career sustained a fatal blow. He was forced to step down from his House leadership position and, in 2006, he resigned from Congress. 

The charges arose after DeLay set up a PAC to funnel corporate money, which is barred in Texas elections, to candidates for the state legislature. The group raised $190,000 and funneled it through the national Republican Party, which then distributed the money to several state-level candidates in Texas.

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The sentence comes after a jury in November convicted DeLay on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. DeLay was once one of the most powerful men in U.S. politics, ascending to the No. 2 job in the House of Representatives.

The former Houston-area congressman had faced up to life in prison. His attorneys asked for probation.

Senior Judge Pat Priest issued his ruling after a brief sentencing hearing on Monday in which former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert testified on DeLay's behalf.

Priest declined to hear testimony from the state's only witness.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

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Jurors deliberated for 19 hours before returning guilty verdicts against DeLay on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge.

After the verdicts were read, DeLay hugged his daughter, Danielle, and his wife, Christine. His lead attorney, Dick DeGuerin, said they planned to appeal the verdict.

"This is an abuse of power. It's a miscarriage of justice, and I still maintain that I am innocent. The criminalization of politics undermines our very system and I'm very disappointed in the outcome," DeLay told reporters outside the courtroom. He remains free on bond, and his sentencing was tentatively set to begin on Dec. 20.

Prosecutors said DeLay, who once held the No. 2 job in the House of Representatives and whose heavy-handed style earned him the nickname "the Hammer," used his political action committee to illegally channel $190,000 in corporate donations into 2002 Texas legislative races through a money swap.

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Former top DeLay aides Michael Scanlon and Tony Rudy pleaded guilty years ago to corruption charges, but apparently DeLay himself did not violate any federal laws.

Which, of course, doesn't mean that DeLay isn't still an amoral, unethical scumbag. The details of DeLay's relationship with Abramoff are a matter of public record, and while blocking legislation banning sweatshops in the Northern Mariana islands from reaching the floor of the House, as a favor to Abramoff, isn't a crime, it is still probably not something you want to brag about.

DeLay still faces charges in Texas for conspiracy and being just as corrupt as everyone always knew he was.

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According to conventional media wisdom -- always heavily influenced by Republican noisemakers -- the Democrats should expect to suffer because two powerful committee chairs from their party are undergoing ethics investigations. But why should Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats take the blame when they brought reform that led to those investigations, regardless of the political consequences?

Yet, having thrown out the bums who tolerated corruption for so long under Republican leadership, the public is supposedly itching to throw out their replacements, who have reformed the House rules, created a new Office of Congressional Ethics, and handled every case impartially, as promised when the Democrats took over in January 2007. Voters have plenty of reasons to feel frustrated and angry this year, but ethics reform is not among them.

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"If there's a team, no one has asked me to join. As a conservative, I normally write more favorably about Republicans than Democrats and I routinely treat conservative ideas as superior to liberal ones. But I've never been part of a discussion with conservative writers about how we could most help the Republican or the conservative team."

This assertion of political purity struck me as false, coming from a journalist who has appeared repeatedly as a speaker at Republican Party events across the country -- a breach of the political boundaries of "traditional journalism" that few, if any, of the writers on Journolist, for example, would ever contemplate.

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The other thing they have in common, of course, is Alex Gibney, who has made movies about all those subjects, including the Oscar-winner "Taxi to the Dark Side," the box-office breakthrough "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and "Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson," which wasn't a big hit but strikes me as a key work in understanding what Gibney is up to. He thrives on those oversize emotions mentioned above, channeling them into intentionally ambiguous pop documentaries that inhabit a nuanced middle ground between journalism and entertainment.

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In this Webisode, Gibney explores the elaborate money shuffle through which Abramoff channeled money from supposedly legitimate lobbying clients (like Indian tribes) through Republican PACs and Big Pharma front groups, who in turn wrote industry-friendly legislation that was passed intact by the GOP-led Congress. I'll have an interview with Gibney and more coverage of the film next week. "Casino Jack and the United States of Money" opens May 7 in major cities, but you'll only find this clip here (at least until the DVD comes out).

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The Times originally investigated Rangel’s finances and fundraising and then published the stories that triggered the official ethics probe. The ethics committee, reorganized by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2007, ultimately did not shrink from admonishing one of the most powerful and senior Democrats in the House, and continues to examine other allegations against him. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington -- a watchdog group funded by Democratic donors -- twice named Rangel to its annual list of “most corrupt” members of Congress (which is always admirably bipartisan, unlike such lists maintained by CREW's conservative counterparts).

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Unofficial Birther headquarters WorldNetDaily is trumpeting the news: In an interview with the man once known as "The Hammer," Newsweek's Ramin Setoodeh pointed out, "You got into some trouble for saying on TV that you weren't sure President Obama was born in the United States." DeLay responded, "What I said was, to answer a question from Chris Matthews, I said: 'Why wouldn't the president of the United States show the American people his birth certificate?' You have to show a birth certificate to play Little League baseball. It's a question that should be answered. It's in the Constitution that you have to be a natural-born citizen of the United States to be president."

Seetodeh followed up by asking, "Do you think he isn't a citizen?"

"I have no idea," DeLay answered.

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"The Republican Party doesn't have the organization or leadership to take advantage of this dire political situation that Obama is in now. We have these grassroots sprouting up, but not the party organization to use them," the man known as "The Hammer" told Politics Daily. "Republicans are leaderless ... It's all the same old guys who were in leadership with me, and those old guys aren't the leaders the party needs."

Delay also offered some thoughts on healthcare reform, saying he believes the current Democratic plans are unconstitutional:

The federal government doesn't have the authority to mandate small businesses .... The only way any of this health care could be constitutional would be if the government allowed interstate choice so people could choose health care policies from any of the 50 states.

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Now, DeLay's going to be back in the spotlight, albeit one of an entirely different sort. He'll be on the next season of the "celebrity" reality show "Dancing With the Stars," along with fellow luminaries like Donny Osmond, Kelly Osbourne, Melissa Joan Hart and Michael Irvin.

The show's executive producer, Conrad Green, told Entertainment Weekly, "We usually throw a few Hail Marys every season to people we don’t think are gonna say yes, but we think, oh, why not ask him. Occasionally, they come off. As it turns out, Tom DeLay likes to do a bit of the Two Step, he likes dancing with his wife. His daughter is a country dancing champion, I believe .... Now I don’t know whether that translates into him being the next Mario Lopez on the dance floor, but I think he’s gonna come into it with a big smile on his face and probably surprise a lot of people cause he’s gonna embrace it so much.”

Even if DeLay turns out to be the world's best dancer, going from House majority leader to being compared -- not in a wholly favorable way -- to someone best known for starring in "Saved By the Bell" is not exactly the dream career trajectory for most politicians.

(Hat-tip to Michael Scherer.)

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Every time you turn on the television, some Republican is ranting like the kind of barstool know-it-all who gives booze a bad name. Recently it was Tom DeLay, explaining to MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Texas might leave the United States to avoid (imaginary) tax increases. And here I thought the Dallas Cowboys were "America's Team."

After first giving us George W. Bush, then impugning the patriotism of anybody who thought invading Iraq was a bad idea, the Texas Knothead faction loses an election, and then talks secession. DeLay was making it up as he went along, claiming the Obama administration seeks "50 percent to 60 percent tax rates on American citizens." In reality, it seeks a 39.6 percent rate on yearly income over $250,000, tax cuts for everybody else.

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As former House Republican leader Tom DeLay said, he and his colleagues deliberately started “every policy initiative from as far to the political right” as possible, so as to shift “the center further to the right.” The formula emulated Franklin Roosevelt’s fabled admonishment to allies: “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

With Bush, congressional Republicans knew they had an ideological comrade in the White House. But they also knew he was confined by the (minimally) moderating desire for reelection and the (even more minimally) moderating limits of his national office. So, to reach their goals, conservatives had to compel their presidential friend to do what they wanted -- and compel him they did. When Bush’s tax cuts and deregulatory schemes hit the Capitol, Republicans inevitably expanded them to fully achieve the right’s objectives.

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What Time does not explain, however, is that Bush has returned to a state far different from the one he left eight years ago. A rapid rise in the Latino electorate promises to turn the state purple in the foreseeable future, and the Republicans have lost seats in the state legislature in each of the last three election cycles. But more importantly, having placed all its chips on the wrong party, in 2009 the state has ceded nearly all of its national influence.

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I moved to Washington in 2003, just in time for the comeback, for the hundred-year flood. At first it was only a trickle in the basement, a little stream released accidentally by the president's friends at Enron. Before long, though, the levees were failing all over town, and the city was inundated with a muddy torrent of graft.

How are we to dissect a deluge like this one? We might begin by categorizing the earmarks handed out by Congress, sorting the foolish earmarks from the costly earmarks from the earmarks made strictly on a cash basis. We could try a similar approach to government contracting: the no-bid contracts, the no-oversight contracts, the no-experience contracts, the contracts handed out to friends of the vice president. We might consider the shoplifting career of one of the president's former domestic policy advisors or the habitual plagiarism of the president's liaison to the Christian right. And we would certainly have to find some way to parse the extraordinary incompetence of the executive branch, incompetence so fulsome and steady and reliable that at some point Americans stopped being surprised and began simply to count on it, to think of incompetence as the way government works.

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