What Goes Around

I have watched with amusement Tom DeLay's pretrial shenanigans in Texas. The law is always somewhat humorous and add to this the spectacle of the neighborhood bully finally reaping some karma. Yesterday his lawyer successfully got the judge in the case recused because the judge was, get this, too Democratic to fairly try Mr. DeLay. I remember thinking at the time what's the reductio ad absurdum on this one? Democrats can't try Republicans and Republicans can't try Democrats because of undue bias. But wait, this means Republicans can't try Republicans and Democrats can't try Democrats either because of undo favoritism. Had I blogged at the time I would have been proven prescient. Today the prosecutor got the new judge, a staunch Republican, recused for exactly this reason. I think the only fair thing to do is move the whole darn trial to a place where they don't give a whit about either of our political parties. Maybe Syria. Any Texas boy should love it because Syria also fully embraces the death penalty. "I find the defendant guilty. The jury may fire when ready."

Where this will all wind up is the Texas Supreme Court. Politically they lay a little to the right of Darth Vader and will likely see no problem with DeLay presiding over his own trial. This is not particularly awful because the judge's power in this case is somewhat limited. The jury has the final say and this is where it gets really good. The trial is being held in the city of Austin. Because of DeLay's own aggressive gerrymandering this district is 99.99% Democratic. His second pretrial motion, still pending, is for a change of venue. The argument is similar. There are just too many Democrats around there to render an impartial verdict. I can't see any judge with two synapses to rub together (which leaves out only Clarence Thomas) being able to grant this motion with a straight face. Besides I firmly believe that God has a rich sense of irony and won't let it happen. Forget baseball, this is going to be one fine spectator sport!