Another Point on Which We Cannot Let Ourselves Be Fooled

The Republican chairman of the House ethics committee offered on Wednesday to begin an investigation of Majority Leader Tom DeLay to end a stalemate that has kept the panel from functioning this year.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Washington, made the proposal at a news conference flanked by three of the four other Republicans on the ethics panel. The evenly divided committee also has five Democrats.

Senior committee Democrat Alan Mollohan of West Virginia quickly rejected the offer, saying his party would continue blocking the panel from operating unless investigative rules imposed by Republicans were changed.

Just having an ethics investigation into Tom DeLay means nothing. We've had them before. All that happens is that Tom lights a cigar and goes off on another inappropriate taxpayer- or lobbyist-paid junket so he can play $80-$100K worth of golf (that's SOME putter!).

DeLay used his power to strip the Ethics Committee of any ability to act upon him. Now that all the teeth have been removed from the committee, he's inviting them to bite and smirking at us while he does.

Yes, boys and girls, we DO need to start paying attention to the men behind the curtains because they're doing amazingly bad shit back there and we're paying for it in more ways thatn just through checks to the IRS.