Judging Tom DeLay

Did Rep. Tom DeLay do something legally wrong? I have no idea. My sneaking suspicion is yes, but I also doubt he's the only one doing it; he just got caught. Still, his political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, seems to have been involved in some shady dealing. And it was pretty suspicious when, in April, the House tried to pass a bill to make it more difficult to proceed with an ethics investigation. In short, DeLay hasn't come across as an innocent man.\nIf he really wanted to do himself a favor, he and his Republican cronies would shut up and let the courts do their job. Unfortunately for him, he seems too stubborn to realize that now is not the best time to be slinging mud.\nThere hasn't been a shortage of Republicans willing to stand up and say, as DeLay did, that the case is a result of an "unabashed partisan zealot." However, Ronnie Earle, the prosecutor in DeLay's case and a known Democrat, has indicted four times more Democrats than Republicans, and once indicted himself for missing the campaign finance reporting deadline by one day. I don't know him personally, but right now, his credibility as an honest politician seems a little better than Tom DeLay's.\nTo make matters worse, DeLay called his indictment "one of the weakest and most baseless ... in American history." He should really get over himself. Out of all the miscarriages of justice served in America, throughout all of her history, does DeLay really think his indictment is one of the weakest? \nI'm sure that any one of the more than 150 people from 31 states, who served a total of 1,800 years in prison until they were exonerated by DNA evidence, would disagree. \nIn the past 11 years, DeLay has voted "no" to maintaining the right of habeas corpus in death penalty appeals, "yes" to making federal death penalty appeals harder and "no" to replacing the death penalty with life in prison.\nI guess karma has finally caught up with Mr. DeLay. If he is so convinced the American legal system works, it's time for him to stop being a hypocrite and give it a test run. Even if he's convicted, the maximum he could serve would be two years, a small price to pay for further degenerating American politics from "for the people, by the people" to "for large corporations with deep pockets, by the men (and women) who represent large corporations with deep pockets." \nAnd if he's innocent, at least legally speaking, then his lawyers, unlike those of the aforementioned wrongly convicted, will have the resources to keep him out of jail.\nSo, Tom DeLay, remember the court of public opinion seems to be judging you as an egotistical, untrustworthy man, and your long history of questionable ethics has finally come to bite you in the butt. Fortunately for you, you get a real trial too. But until that comes, for the sake of whatever integrity is left in American politics, just step out of the spotlight for awhile. Few people trust you anyhow.