Texas grand jury indicts DeLay: “House majority leader accused of criminal conspiracy forced to temporarily step down from leadership post; 2 others charged in campaign finance case

A Texas grand jury today indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and two political associates, charging them with a conspiracy to violate Texas campaign finance laws. DeLay said he was temporarily stepping down from his post as the No. 2 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives.”

(Via sunspot.net news headlines.)

Gee, it couldn’t have happened to a crasser guy. DeLay, despite sounding almost moderately sane in the wake of Katrina when objecting to the Bush administration’s handling of things, has been playing nasty hardball as the big swinging dick of Texas politics for much of the past decade. He set loose the feds on Texas Democrats who left the state in an attempt to block a heinous redistricting DeLay had authored; he’s been pushing around everyone in Austin before and since. And now comes the payback.