It is becoming apparent that when House Majority Leader Tom DeLay faces any bad press on ethic allegations, his defense is to say the most ignorant and insensitive he can think of. On Thursday, a Texas grand jury handed down five felony indictments against a PAC that was formed by DeLay and a Texas business group with campaign contributions in 2002. Even through DeLay has not been formally charged with anything,(yet) the writing is on the wall. So what did DeLay do Friday? He went down to Houston with two Bush cabinet members to visit evacuees. While walking around, DeLay stopped to talk with three boys sitting on cots. He compared their stay to being at camp and then said, "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" The boys, now looking dazed and confused, nodded back yes.
"Kind of fun?" Yes Tom, I guess it is "kind of fun" to be homeless, seeing friends and loved ones die, having their government leave them to die for days, and now sitting on cots having a bigot like you and your friends make jokes to and about them.
This isn't the first time DeLay has escaped one news headline by creating a new one. Remember Palm Sunday this past March? DeLay was looking at ethics hearings straight in the face, but lucky for him Terri Schiavo was taking the news by storm 24 hours a days. What did Delay say then? In reference to the Supreme Court decision to remove Schiavo's feeding tube, "there will come a time for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." This was in the wake of several killings of judges including Joan Lefkow and Rowland Barnes. And something else to put in the Hypocrite File, DeLay had consented to ending life support on his own father when he was in a comatose state in 1988.
This latest indictment, had one felony count for the "Texans for a Republican Majority" (the PAC mentioned above) for illegally accepting a political contribution of $100,000 from the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care and four felony counts for the Texas Association of Business on charges of unlawful political advertising, unlawful contributions to a political committee and unlawful expenditures such as those to a graphics company and political candidates. This is significant because this calls into question the circumstances surround the Republican takeover of the Texas House in 2002. Major corporate money flowed through PACs such as DeLays, and with the Republican majority, they were able to pass their redistricting plan for congressional districts to improve Republicans chances in 2004, which did work effectively for the right.
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