Tom DeLay pulls a Quayle-Dobson
What is it with the conservative right (the "family values" vigilantes) and attacks on TV characters?
It appears I wasn't the only one watching a recent episode of Law & Order (a franchise which often/always? has story lines inspired from the headlines) in which judges are getting assassinated. According to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required):
Mr. DeLay wrote the [NBC] television network to complain that one of the characters on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" invoked his name in a story line about the shooting death of a federal judge. "Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt," the fictional police officer said.
...Mr. DeLay (R., Texas) criticized the federal judiciary after the courts refused to stop the death of Terri Schiavo. "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," he said in a statement on March 31, hours after Ms. Schiavo died. Mr. DeLay apologized the next week, saying he had spoken in an "inartful" way and meant that Congress should increase its oversight of the courts.
Besides the official response that clarified that the cop-talk was neither an accusation nor a political statement, creator/executive producer Dick Wolf responded with:
"But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a television show."
Can you spell Murphy Brown, anyone? And how about that child-threatening SpongeBob?
Updated 3:16 pm