Tom DeLay vs. Matt Lauer

DeLay wins, hands down! Brent Bozell III writes on Townhall.com about the interview by Matt Lauer with Tom DeLay on NBC's Today show. Lauer listed a bunch of Republicans caught in scandal and concluded that "almost no one wanted to vote for a Republican president now". DeLay fought back, saying:

"Well, I hate to say this Matt, but you just showed the problem, the double-standard, and you just participated in it. You listed a whole lot of scandals that involve the Republicans, but you didn't mention one Democrat."

Lauer was clearly thrown off, but DeLay persisted:

"If you had listed all the Democrats that are having problems right now, it would have been different. You see the Democrats re-elect the people with their problems. Republicans kick them out. If you look at what's going on, it's how you handle it as a party."

He then launched into his own list:

You have right now, Alan Mollohan, a congressman from West Virginia, who is being investigated by the FBI, and the Democrats have kept him on as chairman of the committee that has oversight of the budget of the FBI. You have William Jefferson [who was] caught with $90,000 of marked bills in a freezer. And they did put him off the Ways and Means Committee, but they put him on a highly sensitive Homeland Security Committee." He added the old 1980s examples of Reps. Barney Frank and Gerry Studds, and could have added another dozen had the word "Clinton" been introduced into the conversation.

Lauer was totally dismantled in this interview. Is it any wonder the Democrats were so eager to have DeLay resign over potential campaign finance charges (which are suspect at best, and the case is still ongoing)? By the way, that resignation was the result of the Republicans voluntarily offering to step down from leadership positions if they were ever indicted (regardless of the outcome of the charge); Democrats have no such restriction. That was a monumentally stupid move by the Republicans, and they should make haste to correct it.

Regardless, wouldn't it be great if more Republicans in Congress were willing to stand up and slug it out with their liberal opponents like DeLay did here? That's something I'd love to see.

There's my two cents.