*snort*

[yendi]

DeLay's really doing a great job of defending himself.

"I have done nothing unlawful."

Um, gee, is that your way of saying, oh, I don't know, "I am not a crook?"

And the sentence is even better if you get it fully in context:

"I have done nothing unlawful, unethical or, I might add, unprecedented."

Lovely. So you did nothing illegal or immoral, but on the off-chance you did, well, everyone else was doing it too?

Comments

[sempereadem.livejournal.com]

Oh, god, what politician was it that said, "I did nothing illegal, what I did was fail to comply with the law."?

I want to say it was Marion Barry but I'm sure that's wrong.

[yendi]

Wouldn't surprise me, but I think Barry's shtick was more that he was set up, and that he never would have bought the crack if he knew that the guy selling it was a cop.

[crickie.livejournal.com]

It was David Dinkins, NYC Mayor...and what he said was, "I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."

[experimentego.livejournal.com]

I think what DeLay meant by "not unprecedented" he meant that if he did something illegal or immoral then he's done it before. :D

[litch.livejournal.com]

Creativity was never Delay's strong suit

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

I think "Everyone else was getting away with it" is not necessarily the perfect excuse, but it does raise the question of whether and why he was singled out, from all the others, for special treatment.

[windswept.livejournal.com]

No, by unprecedented he's referring to the fact that the PAC ran the transactions in question by election lawyers first, and were told that precedent allowed for the transactions they were making. He's referring to legal precedent, in other words. (Now, the lawyers could have been wrong - I'm not saying they weren't. But don't mock the guy for a legitimate avenue of defense.)