Opinion in Brief

On Monday the devil took up ice-skating, on Tuesday Tom DeLay quit Congress and on Wednesday the Republican-led House voted to put a cap on nonprofit campaign donations. U.S. politics beats even four-legged fish in the “very strange things” category this week.

Some GOP political adviser must have picked up on the fact that the Democratic strategy for “winning” approval has been to not seem as detestable as the Republicans. Bravo. Maybe now Democrats will make some sort of attempt at active government.

But it would be wise to view these right-wing moves with great suspicion. The GOP appears to be making some reasonable choices, and yet it’s handed so much trickery to us in the past that one has to wonder. Why, for example, do Republicans want to limit campaign donations when four years ago they killed a bill put forth by the Democrats that would have limited campaign spending? It seems as though their motive is not to take big money out of politics.

Tom DeLay’s decision to give up his House seat is not necessarily a good thing, either. You don’t have to be in Congress to have lots of influence on politics – DeLay made sure of that himself. He’ll spend the future “helping grass-roots leaders,” he said. That’s not exactly a comforting thought for the opposition.