I think that the most annoying thing about Mr. DeLay’s announcement of retirement is that he’s still pretending that it has nothing to do with all the folks testifying against him. It seems like everyone who ever worked for Mr. DeLay has enough info to work a plea agreement.

Again, Mr. DeLay claims that he’s quitting because “I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative personal campaign,” DeLay said. And, according to DeLay, that’s just not fair.

It seems to me that when a stack of people testify against you in court, in regard to unethical and possibly unlawful behavior, making such a statement goes right to the heart of the current Congressional problem: permissive corruption.

Yes, Delay was brought before the ethics committee a few times, but, they rewrote the rules every time, so, everything he did was fine, right? Seems to me that that’s not fair.

A GOP aide says DeLay will change his legal residence to Virginia, a maneuver that would make him ineligible to run for office in Texas and allow the party to pick a new nominee for the fall election. His resignation would also make it necessary to hold a special election in Texas CD22 to fill the remaining months of his term. This, again, gives someone a few months of incumbency with which to use powerful DC connections to fundraise.

That this is stinky is several directions is clear, but, did you really expect anything different?