1115.org

Sometimes I think that the House Republicans should stop messing around and pass a rule that goes something like this: “Tom DeLay and other Republican party leaders are exempt from all ethical inquiries, prosecutions, censure and anything else that might be considered embarrassing to the Party image”.

In an honorable political system, the above statement would be considered absolutely ridiculous. But consider what the House has already done to protect their beloved leader from those pesky ethics complaints. First, they revoked a rule (one they themselves had put into place to oust corrupt Democrats) that stripped leadership positions from representatives who had been indicted by a grand jury. And now they are considering rules to make it more difficult to even initiate an ethics inquiry.

A House leadership aide said a package of rules changes to be presented to the House when Congress convenes on Tuesday could include a plan that would require a majority vote of the ethics panel to pursue a formal investigation. Now, a deadlock on the panel, which is evenly split between parties, keeps a case pending. The possible change, the aide said, would mean that a tie vote would effectively dismiss the case.

The aide said the change would instill more bipartisanship in ethics cases. But Democrats and outside groups said the proposal would dilute an already weak ethics process.

It takes a sick sense of humor to look at this and call it an attempt toward bipartisanship. But here we are. And lest you forget that the House Republicans are playing for keeps, they are also considering stripping the chairman of the ethics panel (Republican Joel Hefley of Colorado) of his powers; retaliation for presiding over DeLay’s three recent admonishments. The rumor is that the chairmanship will go to Texan Lamar Smith, who not-so-coincidentally contributed $5,000 to DeLay’s legal defense fund.

Ah, sweet synchronicity.