Speculation, no more.

One of the two congressmen who publicly started the petition to have Tom Delay removed from his post as majority leader was Jeff Flake(R - Az.) That name rung a bell, and so I went back in my mind and remembered that not too long ago, after the Nov. elections, when Santorum and several other people in the House and Senate were dodging the question, "would you want Bush to campaign for you?" Jeff Flake stepped up and invited Bush down.

Flake also stood by the president on his recent immigration tour, loudly trumpeting Bush's guest worker program. Medicaire drug benefit, social security accounts, Flake was there with Bush on every one of these bad ideas.

One of the questions that came up before Delay stepped aside was who was gonna have the guts to be the one to publicly ask for it. My wildassed speculation here is that it was in fact somebody in the Bush administration who sent Flake out there to take down Delay guaranteeing Flake political cover from the Whitehouse.

After all, Flake has stood up there like a little monkey doing anything else they asked of him.