Thank you John Dingell!

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) on Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX-R): "These folks talk about values and decency, but then think it’s okay to change the rules once it appears one of their own may have broken them. This amounts to a work release program for the ethically challenged. We should all remember that a decade ago, Mr. DeLay helped to create this rule. Republicans said at the time they were the party of reform and good government. Now they’ve become the party of moribund hubris."

I am proud to have been your constituent while at my alma mater.

With each passing day, it must become more and more difficult to delude yourself into being a Republican. Glad I don't have that problem.

[UPDATE} In case you don't know what Mr. Dingell is talking about here, the GOP voted in caucus to change their own rules regarding keeping House members in leadership posts despite grand jury indictments. Clearly Tom DeLay knows that he's about to get indicted for his role in a number of growing electoral funding scandals in Texas, and he's protecting his Majority Leader status by pre-emptively changing the rules. What's hilarious is that this was a Republican rule:

House Republicans adopted the indictment rule in 1993, when they were trying to end four decades of Democratic control of the House, in part by highlighting Democrats' ethical lapses. They said at the time that they held themselves to higher standards than prominent Democrats such as then-Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski (Ill.), who eventually pleaded guilty to mail fraud and was sentenced to prison.

Like I said, it's more and more difficult to be an undeluded Republican every day.