Republicans Jettison "DeLay Rule"

They only just changed the rule in November, to save House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's delicate hide, saying that, if indicted, he didn't have to step down from his leadership post. Well, last night, feeling some intense pressure from fair-minded members of their own party, the Republican Caucus in the U.S. House reversed itself and reinstated the old rule (though they couldn't quite resist weakening ethics investigations in another way, making it a simple matter to kill an investigation in the event of a tied vote in the Ethics Committee ... an easy call, since the Ethics Committee is deliberately set up with an equal number of Republican and Democratic members, so tied votes are not only likely ... they're expected).

Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) said last night after his caucus reversed the "DeLay Rule," "I feel like we have just taken a shower." We hope nobody dropped the soap. That many announced homophobes has GOT to include a fair number of suppressed yearners.

Howie Kurtz in the WashPost observed, "If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of a horde of House GOPers beating a hasty retreat."

Andrew Sullivan, who we hear knows a thing or two about group showers, wrote, "Here's a sign that the Republican leadership on the Hill know that hubris is a real danger. DeLay is ruthless. But he's not dumb. The Republicans know that their public support is tenuous; that their increased numbers were primarily a function of gerrymandering. Bending ethics rules for their own purposes was never going to fly."

O tempores! O moral superiority!

UPDATE: Congressman Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), the beleaguered chair of the House Ethics Committee, is quoted in this a.m.'s NYTimes saying he will publicly oppose changes to the ethics rules, if they come to the House floor. "This is not the way to effect meaningful reform," Hefley said, referring to the fact that Democrats had not been consulted. "Ethics reform must be bipartisan, and this package is not bipartisan." What does Hefley have to lose, since his own leadership have made it very clear they were planning to dump him off the ethics panel anyway? Hefley does not intend to go quietly, evidently.