Delay moves to take his disgraced name off ballot.

Oily Texan Tom Delay won the primary in his district before being indicted on a laundry list of corruption charges. Now he wants off the ballot, knowing that he's tarnished beyond repair.

Delay took the issue to an appelate court before taking it all the way to the supreme court... and losing.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused yesterday to block an appeals court ruling to keep former congressman Tom DeLay as the Republican candidate on the ballot, all but ensuring that the former House majority leader will stand for election in November for his suburban Houston district.

DeLay was under indictment in Texas and facing a possible House ethics investigation when he resigned his seat in June and announced he would move to Alexandria in hopes of removing his name from the ballot.

But Democrats, eager to keep the politically tainted DeLay on the ballot, argued that he won the Republican primary this spring and cannot now decide on a successor without violating state election law and the U.S. Constitution. DeLay maintains a home in his district and cannot show that he would be living outside the district on Election Day, Democrats asserted

Republican federal judge in Texas ruled in favor of the Democratic argument last month, and that ruling was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans last week. With the election less than 100 days away, Texas Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court yesterday to stay the appeals court ruling and allow them to pick a new candidate to stand against Democrat Nick Lampson in November. That appeal was routed to Scalia, who denied it just two hours after it was received.

Former House majority leader Tom DeLay announced yesterday that he will make whatever moves are necessary to remove his name from the ballot in November, leaving the Texas Republican Party with no name on the ticket in his district but allowing GOP leaders to back a write-in candidate.

DeLay's decision leaves his party with a difficult write-in campaign, in which it will seek to hold the retired politician's Houston area district in a year when Democrats have a chance to seize control of the House.

"It's a huge uphill battle to win against the circumstances that are in place," said Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, a Republican member of the Houston City Council who has been preparing to run for DeLay's seat. "It's difficult to get voters to take a write-in candidate seriously."

Last I heard, the Republicans had talked the mayor of some town in Delay's district into putting himself foreward as a write-in candidate.

And another note about the Lieberman situation. He's managed to extinguish what sympathy and regret I had about his defeat by sounding crazy in subsequent interviews, as well as the fact that it's been reported that Bush instructed Karl Rove to call Lieberman and offer any help they could give.

And the interviews I've seen of Lieberman today have simply been pathetic. He has no support from the party, and sounds increasingly delusional in explaining his quixotic desire to run as an indepenent.

Today in a lame attempt to defend his support of the quagmire in Iraq, Lieberaman said that unless we "stay the course", that "Iraq will fall apart" (It ALREADY has fallen apart Joe!! It's worse than it was under Sadaam!!!) "The mideast will be destablilized" (I don't even need to say anything. How out of touch can a guy be to actually state with a straight face that he fears that if we don't stay and die that the mideast might be "destabilized"??) and that "al Queda will gain a foothold in Iraq." (Uh... too late Joe.)

How incredibly delusional does a guy have to be to A. Think these things are good arguments for why we need to CONTINUE fighting in Iraq, and B. to not realize that ALL OF THEM HAVE OCCURRED PRECISELY BECAUSE WE INVADED IRAQ. As a matter of fact, all the things that Joe fears would not have happened had not Bush and Cheney, with Joe's steadfast support, ignored reality and insisted on getting their war on.

It's actually sad to see a good public servent like Lieberman going out by looking increasingly like some unhinged guy desperately clinging to power and refusing to get the hint.

It's ironic that he was instantly ready to give up and not even stand up to proven and blatant discrepancies and vote fraud while the presidential ticket he was a part of was being swindled out of victory. Joe went on TV almost immediately more than ready to give up the fight even in the face of huge and glaring problems and the fact that a true count of the votes would have given the Dems the White House. Joe's heart just wasn't in it, and his advocating giving up and letting Bush steal the presidency only served to allow the Bush campaign to start the idea that it was GORE who was somehow trying to steal the election. Joe played right into it almost like he was being paid to do so.

It makes you wonder just what the Bush's have on Lieberman. After all, every time the George the Lesser has his back against the wall, they can count on Joe to pop up and do his bit to help.

Yet now when he's clearly lost a Democratic primary, he's decided he can't go back on his "principles" and so must fight on. Where were those priciples when he actually had a reason to fight?

Frankly, it's disgusting and sad. I truly hope his candidacy goes down in flames.