The best defense

Tom DeLay has decided that the best defense to his two indictments is to come out swinging against Ronnie Earle, the Texas prosecutor who has brought the charges against him:

In a motion filed last week, the defense team said that from Sept. 29 through Oct. 3, Earle and his staff "unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations and attempted to browbeat and coerce" the grand jury that refused to indict DeLay. The motion said Earle then attempted to cover up and delay public disclosure of the refusal, and also "incited" the foreman of the first grand jury to violate grand jury secrecy by talking publicly about the case in an effort to influence grand jurors still sitting.

The foreman, Gibson, gave interviews after the grand jury finished its work but told The Associated Press that Earle did not ask him to discuss the case.

"That's a bunch of [expletive] there," Gibson said. "That man did not talk to me."

Gotta love Texas justice.

The point of this assualt is not to actually bring charges against Earle, but to create the appearance of indiscretion on the prosecutors behalf when none appears to exist. And I seriously doubt that Earle, knowing the whole time he was being video taped for a documentary, would do anything foolish of illegal.

Still the battle rages. And the papers have been sucked in. Rather than continue the story against DeLay, they have begun to report on the so far bogus charges on Earle. The end result? A muddled public view until the Texas trials of Tom are complete.