DeLay's tactics a ruse

By MICHAEL CULVER

Is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s continual criticism of the Supreme Court justices a smoke screen for his own legal problems? Most certainly.

He has openly created controversy over the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene in the Terri Shiavo tragedy in order to take the spotlight away from several current controversies surrounding him.

There is the investigation in which three of his close associates and eight corporations have been indicted on charges that include multiple counts of money laundering and the illegal use of corporate contributions.

This case involves a political action committee called “Texans for a Republican Majority” chaired by DeLay and run by the associates named in the indictment.

DeLay has publicly stated that he has done nothing wrong and doesn’t expect to be indicted on the charges, yet he has hired a team of lawyers and his legal defense fund has reached over a million dollars.

The House Ethics Committee also rebuked DeLay on three separate matters last congressional session. So what did the House Republicans do? They fired the chairman of the Ethics Committee and removed two members.

Is there a pattern to DeLay’s political ramblings? Sure there is. When in trouble, put someone else’s head on the chopping block. DeLay’s tactics suggest he is trying to pull the blindfold of the American justice system over the eyes of a prying nation and thereby shield himself from further scrutiny by the press, his peers and the public at large.

He needs to go home to Texas and clean up his own house before he starts trying to clean someone else’s home, or next thing he knows, someone is going to extract the feeding tube to his political career.

Then who’s going to be there to help him gain another lifeline?

Yeah, that’s right. It will be those same judges sitting on those same benches; only this time they will be hearing a different case, DeLay’s case.