ETHICS? WHAT ETHICS?

Have they no shame? What a question. Most available evidence points to a resounding "NO."

House Republicans showed no shame when they gave Majority Leader Tom DeLay job security even if he comes to be indicted in a political corruption scandal back home in Texas.

Now they're going after one of DeLay's accusers.

The House ethics committee has ruled that a Democratic lawmaker exaggerated in the accusations he brought in June against the majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay.

Mr. DeLay invoked the finding to claim vindication Friday despite having been admonished by the committee after its inquiry into the complaint.

In a letter issued Thursday night, the two leaders of the bipartisan ethics panel told the accuser, Representative Chris Bell, like Mr. DeLay a Texan, that his charges violated a committee rule that prohibits "innuendo, speculative assertions or conclusory statements'' in accusations against a colleague.

"This is a serious matter,'' the senior members told Mr. Bell, who lost his seat in a March primary as a result of a redistricting plan that Mr. DeLay helped devise. They said that "the fact that the committee ultimately determined to issue a letter of admonition to Representative DeLay'' did not lessen Mr. Bell's violation.

In his complaint, Mr. Bell made a number of broad accusations, including bribery and use of government resources for partisan purposes. But the letter said that the facts "did not even come close to supporting this extremely serious claim'' of bribery and that other allegations had turned out to be unsupported as well.

And WaPo has this:

Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) absurdly termed the Bell complaint "one of the greatest abuses of the ethics process that the House of Representatives has ever seen" -- as if the ethics committee had not found grounds to admonish Mr. DeLay.

The article doesn't reference it, but I heard KRLD news radio report that at least one Republican Congressman is insisting that Bell pay the costs of the inquiry and DeLay's attorney fees.

Unbelievable.