After Dan Rather routinely called Ken Starr a “Republican independent counsel” and a “Republican-backed special prosecutor,” would CBS anchor Bob Schieffer describe DeLay prosecutor Ronnie Earle as a Democrat? No, but Jim Stewart got around to it halfway through the story. Then CBS really began delighting in the story’s possible anti-Republican impact with analyst Gloria Borger.
Borger: “I had one Republican say to me, we’re less worried about Tom DeLay right now than we are about the President. And we think that about 70 seats could really be up for grabs in those mid-term elections. That’s twice as many as they had originally thought.”
Schieffer: “Well, are they really thinking that maybe they could lose control of the House next time around?”
Borger: “They don’t want to think that, Bob. And they know that that would be a real uphill fight for the Democrats, but they’re beginning to believe that this smells really, really badly for them, and they’re very, very worried about it now because they know they cannot depend on this president and his coattails any longer.”