Backbone Wins Again: House Ethics Committee Avoids Evisceration

I've long held that politicians, like business owners, do better when they remember their backbone. On March 12, I blogged about the Democrats' refusal to go along with new House Ethics rules that seemed to be designed specifically to protect House Speaker Tom Delay from having to face up to his many ethically questionable actions.

For once in their too-often-spineless lives, the Democrats held firm. And they won! Yesterday, all but 20 members of the House voted to reinstate the previous committee rules, and that's likely to mean an investigation of the ultra-rightist Delay and his hanky-panky around lobbyist-paid travel, intimidation, and other "might makes right" shenanigans.

Bravo!