New Land Speed Record in Hypocrisy!

The Majority Leader of the House, Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was a featured participant in a previous article I wrote on hypocrisy -- you will remember him as the one who fought to deny the ability of a brain-dead comatose patient's husband to make decisions regarding her care. This, despite having pulled the plug on his own father in order to alleviate his suffering. Based on his actions today, he may have set a new world record for the quickest hypocritical statement by a politician.

Having already been admonished three times in the last twelve months for ethics violations, he was late last week formally indicted on conspiracy charges, relating to his fundraising activities in Texas. There aren't many rules restricting campaign finance in Texas -- in fact there is precisely one: you can't accept money from corporations and give it to candidates. DeLay and his associates are accused of collecting money from corporations via their "Texans for a Republican Majority" committee, then sending the money on to the Republican National Committee, who then cut a check for the exact same amount to give directly to candidates. Shady? Definitely. Illegal? We shall see!

If this sounds to you like money laundering, then you're not alone: prosecutor Ronnie Earle today (Monday) further indicted DeLay on two money-laundering charges, making DeLay by far the most indicted US politician in the last 100 years.

When the original indictment came out on Wednesday, DeLay was "outraged" at how he was being singled out for political persecution by a "partisan hack Democrat" (Earle). DeLay did not explain how Earle's prosecution record (13 Democrats and 3 Republicans) is proof of a bias against Republicans.

So on Friday, DeLay let rip with this zinger:

My defense in this case will not be technical or legalistic. It will be categorical and absolute.

Yet today Fox News reports:

[DeLay's] lawyers asked a judge Monday to throw out the first indictment, arguing that the charge of conspiring to violate campaign finance laws was based on a statute that didn't take effect until 2003 — a year after the alleged acts.

Congratulations, Mr DeLay: a categorical and absolute denial of the charges, based on solid fact-based refutations of the evidence. Guinness will be contacting you shortly.

And while on the subject of alcohol, another politican has made the headlines for unbelieveable antics. David Graves (Republican, naturally) attempted to get out of a drunk-driving charge in Georgia by invoking a two-hundred year old law granting immunity from arrest to government officials travelling to or from official meetings during legislative sessions. The law was enacted to prevent corrupt local sheriffs from arresting and detaining politicians in transit just long enough to miss a vote -- hardly something that is common-place today.

This story would be funny enough, even without the other salient points: the "official meeting" that he was returning home from was basically a private party at which he and a bunch of colleages got roaring drunk -- he would have us believe this is government business as usual! More hilariously, though, the scandal has forced him to resign his position on an official state government committee: the one regulating the sale of alcohol.