Oct. 1, 2005, 6:56PM
WHAT GOES AROUND
Rep. Tom DeLay is on the receiving end of hardball tactics he has used for partisan gain.
AFTER his indictment Wednesday on a charge of conspiring to violate Texas campaign finance laws, U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay appeared on the television show Hardball and said he had done nothing wrong. He said it was lawful to trade restricted corporate cash for unrestricted individual donations. He said Texas law allowed the use of corporate money to pay for political operatives and phone banks and other trappings of a modern election campaign.
Television host Chris Matthews asked, "Is anything illegal?"
DeLay, R-Sugar Land, had no answer, but a Texas jury will be asked to decide.
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Upon the news of his indictment, DeLay said Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle was "an unabashed partisan zealot" and a fanatic. Earle's appearance in May at a Democratic fund-raiser, at which he denounced DeLay, was highly improper, but the district attorney's party affiliation has little bearing on the case. As for DeLay, few politicians are as fiercely partisan, and no one was more insistent that President Bill Clinton be impeached.
DeLay might recall what he said in April to the National Rifle Association convention in Houston: "Political discourse tends to get so heated that it's not only policies but motives that get questioned ... that doesn't mean our opponents are bad people."
One sentiment DeLay has not voiced publicly is the one contained in the familiar words of a fellow Texan, the late House Speaker Sam Rayburn: "What goes around comes around."
entire article here:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/3377644
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