If there’s one thing I love in this world, it’s a good smear campaign against a turd-burglar politician. Such is the case with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). For the first time since my beloved Clinton days, the Democrats are slowly regaining their street credibility (instead of whining like a bunch of snot-nosed children).

These past few weeks have probably been hell for good ol’ Tommy Boy. Throughout the first four years of George W. Bush’s presidency, DeLay has been questioned for his political action committees receiving excessive amounts of support from large corporations. However, the corruption charges stagnated in Bush’s first term and received coverage occasionally by the press.

It wasn’t until the Terry Schiavo case that Tommy Boy catapulted himself into the limelight. As pundits on both sides of the political spectrum whimpered about Schiavo’s rights to live, ABC News reported that Tom DeLay told his fellow Republican croonies in closed-door speeches and memos that the Schiavo case can be used to appeal to the Republican party’s pro-life platform.

Someone needs to tell Tommy that a plan to exploit remotely hot brain-dead chicks for political gain is about as practical as wearing FUBU at a KKK convention. He couldn’t screw up any further, right?

Looks like on April 6, the New York Times said he can. The Times reported that DeLay’s group, Americans for a Republican Majority, or ARMPAC, had paid over $500,000 to Tom’s wife and daughter since 2001. ARMPAC spokesmen defended the money by saying the DeLay’s wife and daughter had “provided valuable services to the committee in exchange for the payments.” I thought America had enough of politicians rewarding women for “valuable services” when the Monica Lewinsky case ended.

The best part is, the Washington Post came out the same day with an additional corruption charge against ol’ Tommy Boy. In 1997, DeLay had taken a $57,238 vacation with four of his staff members to Moscow. According to the tax records, a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas financed the trip. This Bahamian company also contributed $440,000 to DeLay’s campaign committees.

It’s OK, Tommy, you’ll be fine as long as your Republican butt-buddies have your back.

Maybe not. Vice President Dick Cheney (Am I the only one that thinks he looks like the Penguin from Batman?) told the New York Post, “I don’t think it’s appropriate,” regarding DeLay’s involvement in the Schiavo case. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut) became the first Republican to ask DeLay to step down. On ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania), said DeLay needs to “lay out what he did and why.”

Now, it’s only a matter of weeks before Tom DeLay calls it quits. Pundits like Rush Limbaugh, America’s finest pain-killer popper and black-people hater, have addressed DeLay’s corruption charges as “a liberal conspiracy to bring down a strong leader.” But when you take the countless corruption charges and growing number of dissenting Republicans into consideration, DeLay is going to need all the strength he gets once he’s sentenced to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

Aman Ali is a junior information design major, president of the Muslim Students Association and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].