Over the last few months, Democrats have stepped up their attacks on controversial Senate Majority Leader Tom DeLay.  They're still sore about the redistricting plan in Texas that saw them lose several seats in the House of Representatives, which gave them a net loss in Election 04 (nevermind the fact that Democrats have been doing those same redistricting tricks in the South for decades).

Note that Democrats haven't been accusing DeLay of anything illegal, only "unethical".  "Ethics" is a relative term, especially when you add in the fact that many Congressmen across the aisle have been guilty of the same things the Democrats, the media, and the left wing orgs have been accusing DeLay of.

Here's a great example.  Click on the map.

The Democrats don't want DeLay to actually defend the charges, because then there's a possibly he could be cleared of them, and thus they can't use it as propaganda anymore.  They expect the American people to stay stupid, and believe these charges are exclusive to the every-day activities of Washington politicians.  I don't mind these practices being ended, but I won't support a hatchet job being executed on someone by insulting the intelligence of the electorate.

Thus, I'm glad the Republicans did decide to return the rules to normal in order to expedite this ethics process and bring closure to these charges.  The AP and other media entities are characterizing this as a Republican "retreat", but if you've been paying attention to both DeLay and Speaker Hastert's comments, they are the ones that are calling for this so they can clear DeLay's name and finally eliminate this from the Democratic Party talking points.