...from Houston Chronicle's Gebe Martinez. She ends the piece with an interesting little twist for the TX-22 crowd:

Lawmakers were split between those who are loyal to DeLay and did not want to be seen as caving in to Democrats, and others who were concerned that Republicans were seen as unwilling to police themselves.

DeLay acknowledged "that is the hottest topic in my district."

The first comes on the heels of the announcement yesterday that House Ethics Chairman Doc Hastings and House Speaker Denny Hastert will allow a new vote on restoring the old rules of ethics investigations. Jim Drinkard of USA Today looks ahead to whether the Ethics Committee can actually do its job in investigating DeLay without the appearance, at least, of conflict of interest. You see, Drinkard reports,

Gebe Martinez and Michael Hedges of the Houston Chronicle take a look at the actual expenses charged to the credit cards of two DeLay-friendly lobbyists:

• Business Class tickets for DeLay and his wife to London on Continental Airlines and British Airways: $6,938.70
• Golfing fees at St. Andrews: $5,000 per golfer, including DeLay.
• Deluxe room at the London Four Seasons Hotel: $790 a night for four nights.

Dick Polman at the The Kansas City Star has an insightful piece about how the GOP faithful are rallying around their man, Tom DeLay, and what that means:

"He can call a pig a horse, and it's still a pig...It's not going to change the facts. Everyone knows he was admonished." That's what former Rep. Chris Bell (D-TX) has to say in the Houston Chronicle about DeLay's defense that an admonishment from the House Ethics Committee does not equal a "sanction."

The big news this morning was Tom DeLay's six-page, single-spaced letter to his Houston constituents imporing them to listen to the "real story" about, well, there's a long list: the luxurious overseas trips he took paid for by lobbyists including Jack Abramoff, under investigation for bilking Indian tribes out of millions of dollars; changing the rules governing the House Ethics Committee and ousting Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO) as chairman; etc. etc.

The New York Times has three stories of note today, an editorial, a news piece of unrest in DeLay's district, and a Frank Rich column chock full of insight and great writing.

The editorial's key paragraph:

Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lynn Sweet notes that the "drip, drip, drip of negative stories" about Tom DeLay "dashes" any hope he had of succeeding Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) as Speaker of the House. The Boston Globe reports that Tom DeLay is becoming a liability for GOP members facing tight races.

Four years ago today, reported the Houston Chronicle, Tom DeLay denounced local environmental groups’ proposal to settle a clean air lawsuit if Houston-area officials would agree to promote mass transit and cut back on plans for new roads. At a luncheon before the Houston Club:

DeLay… said the settlement offer requires that "you will implement immediately a huge accelerated rail transit system that has nine corridors and costs at least $ 30 billion."

The paper pointed out that contrary to DeLay’s claim:

One of us will have a round-up later this morning, but here's a great quote from the Houston Chronicle story covering Rep. Chris Shays' Rebellion against Tom DeLay:

"I have no comment on anything," Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del., said as he avoided questions about DeLay last week.

Later in the story, the Chron picks up our announcement, which we'll release with details later today: