Bluster no cover for bribery

More criminal charges came down this week on U-S House Speaker Tom DeLay, that born-again bribe-taker from Texas.

To grand jury indictments for bribery, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle – now there’s a Deep South name for you – has tacked on fresh charges of laundering campaign funds, the B-B-C reports.

This came even as DeLay’s lawyers were asking the same judge to throw out last week’s indictment for conspiring to violate campaign laws that went into effect in 2003.

It seems the viciously virtuous DeLay has not been serving God and much as he has Mammon.

After stepping down last week as Chief House Honcho "temporarily" – try to imagine the quote marks around that “temporarily” – DeLay mounted a counter-attack typical for sleazy politicians , only louder and nastier.

"Ronnie Earle has stooped to a new low with his brand of prosecutorial abuse," DeLay blustered in a prepared statement.

Making the rounds of Sunday morning talk shows on networks already in bed with Bush, DeLay was saying this about that.

Ronnie Earle "is trying to pull the legal equivalent of a 'do-over' since he knows very well that the charges he brought against me last week are totally manufactured and illegitimate. This is an abomination of justice," DeLay ranted.

Earlier indictments allege DeLay laundered money in an election campaign for the Texas legislature in 2002. If convicted, DeLay is looking at 20 years under the jail.