No embarrassment evident in attempt to comfort DeLay

At least Bill Clinton showed some embarrassment when he reflected during a June interview on his 1996 affair with Monica Lewinsky. "I think I did something for the worst possible reason -- just because I could," Clinton told Dan Rather.
House Republicans, in an action that effectively spells an end to the government-of-the-people tone inherent in the 1994 Contract with America, show no such embarrassment. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the impression that they are proud of being able to do things just because they can.
The action that inspires this observation is a change in House rules approved by the majority Republicans that allows House leaders to keep their leadership posts even if they are indicted by a state or federal grand jury for a felony, even if the crime is directly related to their government service.
Behind closed doors
In an unrecorded voice vote behind closed doors, House Republicans changed a 1993 party rule that required leaders who are indicted to step aside. An indicted leader can keep his or her post while the Republican Steering Committee -- controlled by party leaders -- decides whether to even ask all GOP House members if action would be appropriate.
A policy that holds that indicted leaders should step aside -- just from their leadership posts, mind you, not from membership in the House -- would seem to be a rule worth keeping. Unless, of course, you were one of the most powerful Republicans in the House, and unless you had already been sanctioned twice by the House Ethics Committee and had reason to believe you might be indicted by a Texas grand jury.
Such is the status of Majority Leader Tom DeLay, an exterminator in private life who earned the nickname "The Hammer" in Congress, a recognition of his willingness to crush opponents or dissenters.
Indictments returned
In September, Texas grand jurors indicted three DeLay associates and eight corporations in an investigation of allegedly illegal corporate contributions to a political action committee associated with DeLay.
The Texas investigation is continuing, and it is not outside the realm of possibility that Delay could be indicted. He dismisses the investigation as partisan politics, and it was on that basis, apparently, that his colleagues changed the rules: to protect him against removal in the event of an indictment that had no legal rational.
Last month, the House Ethics Committee admonished DeLay for appearing to link the political donations to legislative action. The committee also rebuked him for asking federal aviation officials to track an airplane with Democratic Texas legislators on board during a 2003 redistricting battle.
That, too, to hear DeLay tell it was a partisan attack. But the bipartisan committee issued a unanimous ruling.
Now that DeLay has been protected by his colleagues from removal for anything short of a felony conviction, don't be surprised if the leader's next move is aimed at tying the hands of the Ethics Committee.