You know Tom DeLay is in trouble when his supporters are forced to set the bar this low. Congressional Quarterly [sub. required] picks up this quote from Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL):

People really do see the distinction between civil and criminal cases. I don’t think it is as big a deal if something civilly happens.

I wonder what LaHood has to say about OJ Simpson…

Angered by a recent Law and Order episode that referenced him, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay wrote to the head of NBC and stated, “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.”

DeLay assumed the Law and Order reference came because of his March 31st 2005 threat: “Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”

So in his letter to the president of NBC, DeLay defended the threat by saying, “When a responsible journalist like [Fox News Channel's] Brit Hume made an inquiry into such comments, he quickly understood them to be limited to Congress’s oversight responsibilities and nothing more.”

Wait. Why is DeLay trying to trot out his original defense of the threat: “Nothing in my statement was threatening, irresponsible, dangerous, inappropriate, intimidating, or reckless…No sincere interpretation of my statement could lead a reader to any other conclusion.”

We’ve already gone through this. The comments were reckless and even DeLay agreed when he apologized for them: “I said something in an inartful way, and I shouldn’t have said it that way, and I apologize for saying it that way…I didn’t explain it or clarify my remarks, as I’m clarifying them here…I am sorry that I said it that way, and I shouldn’t have.”

To defend his March 8, 2000, filibuster of Judge Richard Paez, Majority Leader Bill Frist said that voting against cloture to get more information is OK and should be distinguished from an ordinary filibuster. Here’s Frist on the 11/14/04 Face the Nation:

Filibuster, cloture, it gets confusing–as a scheduling or to get more information is legitimate.

Yesterday, Frist described voting against cloture to get more information on ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton as “partisan sniping.” Frist took pains to emphasize that there was no difference between delaying a nomination to get more information and a filibuster:

It certainly sounds like a filibuster…. It quacks like a filibuster.

Of course, when Frist voted against cloture of Paez, the nomination had been pending for four years and he was looking to block the nomination, not get more information. In this case, the Bush administration is refusing to release critical documents regarding Bolton’s conduct in the State Department.

During a 5/17 press conference, Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita was asked about the mistreatment of the Koran by guards and interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. DiRita replied:

[W]hen a specific, credible allegation of this nature were to be received, we would take it quite seriously. But we’ve not seen specific, credible allegations.

Now, we learn that there were at least five confirmed incidents of Koran mistreatment. We’ve also learned this from Brigadier General Jay Hood via the Washington Post:

[A] soldier was reassigned after one recent accidental mishandling of the Koran, and another soldier faced an unspecified disciplinary action for an incident some time ago.

This proves DiRita’s statement was completely false. Not only have there been credible allegations of Koran mistreatment but those allegations were substantiated and at least one individual was punished.