Who's yer daddy, CNN?

You probably know that CNN has been doing a lot of late to get right with the Republican political machine in Washington.

But it turns out that even as Tom DeLay was entering his political death spiral late last year, CNN parent company Time Warner decided to ante up with the DeLay machine by hiring a key DeLay soldier as its chief DC lobbyist.

Can ya say K Street Project?

Tim Berry worked for Tom DeLay for ten years. He became his chief of staff in August 2002 just as the really fun stuff was starting to go down with the Texas money shenanigans and Jack Abramoff was really hitting his stride. As the LA Times put it, "Berry was DeLay's right-hand man as the majority leader came under fire over alleged ethics violations."

Then in the late summer of last year Time Warner decided Berry was their man. As John Bresnahan put it in Roll Call last year, "Berry said he had no intention of leaving DeLay's office, but Time Warner officials approached him recently with an offer he couldn't turn down."

As the Times put it, "the hiring of Berry is aimed at boosting Time Warner's influence with the GOP." And that's not surprising, I guess. But did Time Warner chief Richard Parsons and CNN really need to hire a guy at ground zero of the Congressional corruption meltdown, even after most of the facts were starting to spill out?