Keep an eye on a burgeoning political

scandal in Texas with possible national implications. You probably heard

about Democratic state legislators leaving en masse across the state border

to prevent legislative action on a state redistricting bill pushed, through

his allies, by U.S. House Speaker (and Houston Congressman) Tom DeLay. The

federal Department of Homeland Security got snookered into searching for the

missing Democrats when someone — nobody is quite sure who — on false

pretenses had the feds informed that a plane filled with state lawmakers had

gone missing. The order was passed to the feds by the Texas Department of

Public Safety, which — surprise! — reportedly has had all documents

related to its actions destroyed. This is serious business, because it could involve state officials lying to

the federal Homeland Security agency to trick it into getting involved to

settle a political dispute. One rightly wonders what Tom DeLay’s role was in

this fiasco, if any. The U.S. Government should get to the bottom of this at

once.