Tom DeLay loves Opera

As Timothy Noah of Slate so eloquently states ... "I'm not making this up. I swear"

It is also obviously bad news for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "Lobbyist Tied To DeLay Is Indicted For Fraud," reads the New York Times headline on an AP story. Expect to see a lot more headlines like that. But the cruelest blow for DeLay may be that the world will finally learn the original basis (besides GOP fund-raising) for the bond between Abramoff and DeLay: A shared interest in opera.

Abramoff is a huge opera buff, and until now this has been a closely-guarded secret so is DeLay. The only previous public hint of this mutual enthusiasm was the revelation in June by Associated Press reporter Adam Nossiter that Abramoff persuaded the Coushatta tribe to put up $185,000 in 2000 so DeLay could treat some of his biggest donors to a concert by the fabled Three Tenors (Jose Carreras, Luciano Pavarotti, and Plácido Domingo). Apparently, DeLay is no mere opera dilettante. He knows his spintos and his verismos and his ariosos, and I guess he must work overtime to keep that knowledge a tightly held secret lest his good-ole-boy constituents in Sugarland, Texas, conclude the Hammer is putting on airs. You probably think I'm kidding, but I'm not. The meanest man in Congress, who used to make his living killing insects, is ... the phantom of the opera. I also happen to believe he's a crook, but that's neither here nor there.