By Scott Wright

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that last week folks in Texas -- the same people who elected George W. Bush to be their governor (TWICE!) -- chose to overlook the myriad shortcomings of a snake in the grass named Tom DeLay.

Sixty-two percent of the apparently apathetic Texans who live in Dist. 22, around a Houston suburb called Sugar Land placed a checkmark beside the Hammer's name last Tuesday. (At least, that's what Diebold reported to state officials, so who really knows for certain?)

Anyway, DeLay's a crook, a thief, a liar, and for a while longer, it would seem, a United States congressman. Our own United States congressman, Mike Rogers, is a Republican who -- according to his aides -- still thinks a lot of DeLay, despite current charges of money laundering filed against him by an attorney general in Texas. Congressman Rogers has been quick to remind me that DeLay hasn't been convicted of any crime and should be considered innocent until proven guilty, and he's absolutely right about that.

Where Rep. Rogers and I disagree is about how much stock we should put into the other half-dozen or so well-documented instances of DeLay using the power of his position as House majority leader (since relinquished) to conduct underhanded dealings, engage in acts of political intimidation and bullying, and flaunt the House rules he has repeatedly sworn to uphold as a member of the government of the United States.

I doubt I'll be repeating anything in the ensuing paragraphs that Congressman Rogers hasn't already heard, but maybe some of you readers in Alabama will find this interesting. And by all means, if you have relatives in the Houston area, please clip this column and mail it to them before November rolls around and they send Tom DeLay back to Washington, D.C.

First of all -- and this irks me the most -- is the fact that in 1998, DeLay, who was in cahoots with since-disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, helped kill a congressional fact-finding trip to the Northern Mariana Islands to investigate sweatshop conditions and the sex slave trade in the garment industry there.

For those of you unfamiliar with the despicable situation, the Mariana Islands are covered with illegally-run sweatshops where a cheap labor force comprised of the underprivileged from neighboring island countries are shipped over under false pretenses and forced to work in horrible conditions for scant pay for dozens of hours at a time.

Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton all worked to improve conditions there during their tenures. In fact, Clinton was ready to shut down the entire Mariana Islands operation in 1997 until the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, led by our buddy DeLay, and at the request of the factory owners -- who had hired Abramoff to represent their interests in Washington -- stepped in and put an end to all federal attempts to put and end to the horrible working conditions and sex trading in the Marianas.

DeLay even flew himself and his family to the Marianas in late 1997 where they spent the New Year's holiday and attended several parties hosted by the sweatshop owners who paid for the entire trip. During one of those dinners, DeLay actually referred to Abramoff in a post-dinner speech as "one of my closest and dearest friends."

Now, of course, DeLay acts like he barely knew the man. You can add that to the lies Tom DeLay has told in his legislative career, because there's plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Last week, Abramoff spilled the beans on his brand of crookedness in an exclusive Vanity Fair article. As the article so eloquently put it, "Being airbrushed out of a community [Washington, D.C] in which he cut so wide a swath for the past 10 years ... is enough to hurt someone's feelings." Judging by all the people Abramoff has tattled on so far, he must have been downright pissed over his banishment by the Beltway establishment.

In the piece, some of the more telling photos provided by Abramoff include one of him arm-in-arm with DeLay on a gold course. Besides their golfing outings, Abramoff told Vanity Fair he's also discussed the Bible and opera with the Hammer. Sounds pretty chummy to me.

Abramoff's admissions -- and there probably plenty are more to come -- have made a host of Republicans look lousy of late.

Case in point, to all you readers in Georgia: Ralph Reed, the conservative Bible thumper who's running for lieutenant governor of your state this November, is probably not far behind DeLay in the "Should've Seen That Coming" department. Reed, who has always claimed he opposes gambling, apparently didn't have any problem conspiring with Abramoff several times over the previous decade, accepting gambling money from Abramoff's clients as compensation. After he got busted -- thanks to his own e-mails poking fun at the Native Americans he helped to fleece -- Reed then broke a Commandment by lying about his role in the operation.

Former House Speaker and possible 2008 presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, another joke from Georgia, may soon see his apple cart upturned compliments of Mr. Abramoff, as well. Gingrich recently said through a spokesman that he wouldn't know Abramoff "if he fell across him." But Abramoff has a handful of photos of himself with Naughty Newt that seemingly prove otherwise.

I could ramble on for days and days about all the mules who've bellied up to Mr. Abramoff's trough in the past dozen years or so, but for now let's stick to this particular pack's lead jackass.

Back from his little family vacation the Mariana Islands in 1997-98, DeLay was determined to prevent the Clinton administration from, as DeLay himself described it, "killing prosperity on the islands." When one reporter asked DeLay about the sweatshops, he said in typically callous fashion: "I didn't see anyone sweating."

That's on the record, folks. Check into it.

Behind DeLay's leadership, the House killed attempts to hold hearings on the matter, despite a plea signed by over 200 Democratic and Republican House members. President Clinton's Department of Labor eventually brought about some improvements in the workers' situation, but all this was despite the best efforts of DeLay and Abramoff.

What else do we need to know about Mr. DeLay? Well, let's see ... There's the time he bribed a fellow congressman to get him to vote for President Bush's Medicare Prescription Drug plan.

DeLay has actually admitted to offering to endorse Sen. Nick Smith's (R-MI) son Brad, who was running for Congress a couple years back. The catch was, threatened DeLay, that he would only support the son if the father voted for the Medicare drug plan. This admission earned DeLay one of his "public admonishments" from the House Ethics Committee.

Smith also initially alleged that DeLay offered him $100,000 to change his vote, but he later retracted the charge under pressure from House leaders. DeLay extended the roll call vote on the Medicare drug plan for over three hours -- something that had never happened in the 217-year history of the U.S. Congress.

DeLay also used federal funds to help locate a private plane he thought was carrying Democratic members of the Texas Legislature. DeLay wanted to force the representatives back to Austin so he could push through a bitterly disputed redistricting map that would give the edge in the state to Republicans. Again, DeLay was admonished for violating House ethics rules.

I've got a couple pages of other underhanded DeLay dealings for anyone who'd like to see them. Quickly, they cover charges of political favors, redirecting charity funds to pay for golf trips, accepting donations from companies with legislation pending before the House, etc. It's disgusting, really.

Despite all his obvious unethical and possibly illegal activities, DeLay's constituents seem to want to keep him in office. Nothing they've heard so far has been bad enough to make them realize what a crook they have for a congressman. Hopefully, as Jack Abramoff continues to talk and talk and talk, the people of Texas will start to listen, because I think he's got plenty more to tell about DeLay. If early signs are any indication, sooner or later this Abramoff story is going to bust wide open, the whole truth is finally going to come out, and the Republican-controlled Congress is going to have a flood of feloniousness on their hands.

As the Vanity Fair article states, "... the Abramoff scandal transcends Abramoff. With congressional staffers and, perhaps, some congressmen willing to say anything to save their own skins, the fire could spread unabated."

I say burn, baby, burn.

Scott Wright is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and an award-winning member of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is a native of Cherokee County.