Law & Order & DeLay: Who's got a persecution complex?

Poor Tom DeLay. First all those ethics violations, and now the gang at Law & Order is looking for "somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt". (CNN reports here.)

DeLay to NBC President Jeff Zucker: "This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse... I can only assume last night's slur was in response to comments I have made in the past about the need for Congress to closely monitor the federal judiciary, as prescribed in our constitutional system of checks and balances."

Law & Order creator and executive producer Dick Wolf: "Every week, approximately 100 million people see an episode of the branded 'Law & Order' series. Up until today, it was my impression that all of our viewers understood that these shows are works of fiction as is stated in each episode. But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

Honestly, what the hell is DeLay talking about? Was that one reference to "somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt" really a masked attack on DeLay himself? A not-so-subtle "response" to his own attacks on the judiciary (however much he may claim to be in the right -- which he's not)? How was it a "slur"? And how does it show "disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse"? What "suffering"? What "recent tragedies"? And how does DeLay himself ever contribute to "public discourse" except by mocking it with his very presence in the public spotlight?

Call it DeLay's political correctness. If you "attack" him, you're really attacking those who have suffered through "recent tragedies" and lowering "political discourse". So much for free speech.

Wolf is right. DeLay's looking for a scapegoat. Any scapegoat. But it won't work. His record, more and more of which keeps coming out, speaks for itself. A fictional TV show just won't provide cover for all those ethics violations, no matter how hard he tries to deflect responsibility by blaming others.