Texas has officially been messed with

Check out the sweet House committee chairmanships that Texas Democrats would have held the the next Congress, had they not been redistricted out of their seats in 2003:

Rules: Martin Frost, D-Dallas
Agriculture: Charlie Stenholm, D-Abilene
Homeland Security: Jim Turner, D-Crockett

(As reported by the Dallas Morning News.)

What a bummer for the good people of Texas, who can't possibly deserve Tom DeLay any more than the rest of us deserve W.

Without DeLay

I am sure conservatives across America are delighted that the uber-corrupt Tom DeLay is holding himself up as their poster boy, as he did in his farewell speech today. It makes me sad for the many conservatives I know who hold themselves to high standards of moral and intellectual integrity.

However, after the last few years of capitulation and fence sitting by some in Washington, I find myself almost having to agree with DeLay's ruminations on the value of partisanship in the speech today.

"It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents, who degrades our public debate, but the preening, self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle ."

I think the loyal opposition would do well to adopt this attitude of DeLay's. But keep everything on the up-and-up, 'kay?