by TChris

The House ethics committee, perhaps desiring to appear even-handed, found that Chris Bell's ethics complaint against Tom DeLay contained "excessive" and "inflammatory" language. But that seems to be what it took to prod the moribund committee to do its job.

DeLay is crowing that the committee's finding "vindicates" him, and other Republicans are engaging in the same kind of "excessive" and "inflammatory" rhetoric for which Bell was admonished.

Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) absurdly termed the Bell complaint "one of the greatest abuses of the ethics process that the House of Representatives has ever seen" -- as if the ethics committee had not found grounds to admonish Mr. DeLay. Mr. DeLay himself insisted that he had simply been given a routine "mild warning" from the ethics committee. This transparent effort to rewrite history doesn't withstand scrutiny.

As the Washington Post points out, the committee's action against Bell can only have a chilling effect upon the willingness of other House members to complain of ethics violations -- and that may be exactly what the committee intended.

Meantime, the rules for the 109th Congress may be rewritten to make it even harder or riskier to bring ethics complaints. The last thing the House ethics process needs is less vigor.