Claims against DeLay are spelled out by Bell
Evidently he is very bitter about losing his primary and is using the ethics committee to express his bitterness. I have never liked the politics of personal destruction.
- Rep. Tom DeLay
Look, y'all, Tom DeLay is not known as "The Hammer" because of his sunny, forgiving disposition. I am stunned that he can profess to dislike the "politics of personal destruction", because that is his stock in trade. This from the man who demanded that Bill Clinton resign the Presidency because of his affair with Monica Lewinsky?
In DeLay's case, I suppose self-delusion has risen to become an art form. If there is any justice, he may soon be exposed as the corrupt liar that he is.
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Chris Bell, D-Houston, accused House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Sugar Land on Tuesday of accepting a $20,000 contribution to one of his political action committees from Bacardi USA in exchange for pushing a bill that would benefit the liquor company.
The allegation is part of a wide-ranging ethics complaint that Bell, whose congressional district borders DeLay's, filed Tuesday. As first reported in Monday's Houston Chronicle, Bell is asking the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to investigate claims that DeLay, a Republican, engaged in extortion, bribery and abuse of power in separate incidents during the last two years.
Bell's decision to proceed against DeLay pushed a simmering Texas political feud onto center stage this week on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers for seven years have observed an unofficial truce in filing such complaints against each other.
DeLay denied all of the allegations in Bell's ethics complaint, which he described as the work of a disgruntled partisan....
Bell, a freshman House member, lost his seat after DeLay pushed a congressional redistricting plan through the Legislature aimed at increasing the number of Republicans in the delegation, in part by targeting white Democrats such as Bell.
I suppose one can't blame DeLay for attempting to shift the spotlight onto Bell. After all, cockroaches hate light. Yes, Bell has reason to be upset and angry, but the reality is that perhaps it takes someone with nothing to lose to call DeLay on his corruption and venality. No one else seems to have the cojones to take on DeLay, so if it takes someone who is a "lame duck", so be it.
If there is any justice, Tom DeLay will suffer the same fate as Joseph McCarthy. For someone who seems to have modelled his career on the 1950s-era tyrant from Wisconsin, what could be more fitting? I wish Chris Bell the best, and I hope his quest to paint DeLay as the corrupt tyrant that he is will be successful.
We deserve better.
