DeLay Faces Further Criticism

Tom DeLay continues to be the target of criticism from Republicans as well as Democrats, this time from Newt Gingrich who said "DeLay's problem isn’t with the Democrats; DeLay's problem is with the country."

The statement came in an interview with CBS News, which also reported that "Gingrich said it's time for DeLay to stop blaming a left-wing conspiracy for his ethics controversy and to lay out his case for the American people to judge."

Earlier in the week, Republican Congressman Christopher Shays called for DeLay to step down. Not surprisingly, the Washington Post reports Shays is being shunned by many fellow Republicans, but wonders "whether Shays's rebellion remains the act of one gadfly or becomes the sort of movement that occurred after John B. Anderson became the first Republican in Congress in 1974 to call for President Richard M. Nixon's resignation."

DeLay has refused to respond to recent criticism, and instead has escalated his attacks on the judicial branch, as even conservative Republican judges are no longer acceptable to the far right wing cabal which now controls the Republican Party and has been seeking to eliminate the last traces of Constitutional separation of powers. DeLay's latest attacks on the judiciary have been so extreme that even George Bush has appeared reluctant to go along, expressing at least verbal support for an independent judiciary. Presumably Bush knows better than to bite the hand that put him in office.

DeLay has been repeatedly reprimanded by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee until he replaced the conservative Republican chairman with a DeLay loyalist, and changed the rules making it considerably more difficult to have ethics charges investigated. Previously a tie vote in the Ethics Committee, which has an equal number of members from both parties, would be sufficient to bring about an investigation. Under the new rules, the matter will not be investigated based upon such a tie. Efforts this week to have a bipartisan investigation of the House's ethics procedures were rejected.