The Moose has to admire the chutzpah of Tom DeLay.
Tom Delay decrying ethics abuses is like Al Capone complaining about law enforcement excesses. That is how the Moose viewed the House's Chief Bug Man's response to the Ethics Committee's scolding of DeLay accuser Chris Bell for employing exaggerations in his charges against the Majority Leader. Thou protest too much.
As the Washington Post editorialized today,
The Bell complaint was replete with hyperbolic language and extreme accusations. But it also prodded the ethics committee finally to conduct the investigation of Mr. DeLay that it should have been doing on its own. The committee has closed its doors to complaints filed by outside groups, meaning that only a brave lawmaker can file a complaint. Now its action against Mr. Bell, with its explicit and chilling warning to lawmakers that they risk being disciplined themselves for filing such complaints, means that only the bravest of lawmakers will dare.
The Moose observes that Tom DeLay increasingly resembles Richard Nixon without the intellect or charm. DeLay represents the Nixon tradition - ruthless pursuit of power and ethics be damned. His desperate paranoia is on full display as he flails against his adversaries. DeLay even has his own Agnew - Henry "Spiro" Bonilla. More from the Post editorial,
Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) absurdly termed the Bell complaint "one of the greatest abuses of the ethics process that the House of Representatives has ever seen" -- as if the ethics committee had not found grounds to admonish Mr. DeLay.
It is only a matter of time before DeLay proclaims to one and all, "I am not a crook."
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