The Passion of the Tom, or fear and loathing in D.C.?

Maureen Dowd fires a shot across Tom DeLay's bow. From the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle:

But there's some skittishness in the party leadership about the Passion of the Tom, the fiery battle of the born-again Texan to show that he's being persecuted on ethics by a vast left-wing conspiracy. Some Republicans are wondering whether they need to pull a Trent Lott on Tom DeLay before he turns into Newt Gingrich, who led his party to the promised land but then had to be discarded when he became the petulant "definer" and "arouser" of civilization. Do they want DeLay careering around in Queeg style as they go into 2006?

On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist joined Cheney in rejecting DeLay's call to punish and possibly impeach judges — who are already an endangered species these days, with so much violence leveled against them. "I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," Frist said. "I respect that."

Of course, Frist and the White House still want to pack the federal courts with right-wing judges, but they don't want it to look as if they're doing it because Tom DeLay told them to or because of unhappiness at the Schiavo case.

No matter how much Democrats may be caviling over the House Republicans' attempts to squelch the Ethics Committee before it goes after DeLay (the former exterminator who pushed to impeach Bill Clinton), privately they're rooting for DeLay to thrive. They're hoping to do in 2006 what the Republicans did in 1994, when Gingrich and his acolytes used Democratic arrogance and ethical lapses to seize the House.

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