The DeLay effect

Tom has been working hard to keep a lower profile in the last few weeks. He is hoping to defuse the ethics bomb by being quiet. The trouble for Tom is, once armed these little guys tend to go off, and they tend to create a lot of collateral damage.

Other members of his party have noticed this, and are worried.

Among those endangered are at least two committee chairmen and several other senior members. Congressional districts that traditionally have been safe for Republicans could become more competitive, according to party officials.

Nowhere is the impact of the ethics issue clearer than here in the Appalachian hills of eastern Ohio, where a thicket of weekly newspapers now gives regular coverage to revelations about House Administration Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) and his ties to DeLay and Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist now under criminal and congressional investigation for the tens of millions of dollars in fees he and a partner collected from casino-owning Indian tribes.

These should be feast days for the media who at one time thrived on scandal. Not only do they have Tom DeLay, and his numerous violations, they also have Tom Noe and his amazing disappearing coins, who also was a major Bush fundraiser and donor.

Overseas we still have the largely unreported Downing Street memo, that clearly indicates the existence of a conspiracy by the US administration to create a cause for war in Iraq. New developments indicate that John Boltons efforts to oust Jose Bustani from his UN post may be related to the total effort to start the war.

The midterm elections are only 17 months away, and every Republican needs to be painted with the slime that DeLay, Noe, Abramoff, Rove and Bush have created.