How's your stomach today?

Read this article and risk vomiting all over your pom poms. Or maybe the traitorous staffers were actually more intimate with Tom Delay and learned the true secret teachings of Delay (or, rather, "Tom").

The overwhelming majority of DeLay's staffers were professional, honest and working in Congress for the right reasons. But Tom prized the most aggressive staffers and most often heeded their counsel. As it turned out, three of them went over the line, abused the trust of House members and seemingly broke the law. A former hockey player, Tony Rudy was DeLay's enforcer; he wasn't evil, but lacked maturity and would do whatever necessary to protect his patron. Ed Buckham, DeLay's chief of staff, gatekeeper and minister, constantly pushed DeLay to be more radical in his tactics and spun webs of intrigue we are only now beginning to unravel. And Michael Scanlon, who, in my experience, was a first-class rogue and a master of deception.

People like Rudy and Scanlon pleased DeLay because they were always pushing the envelope; only now that the scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff is playing out and both are cooperating witnesses for the prosecution are we beginning to learn how far they went. I don't know if Tom always knew what his staff was doing -- I know that I didn't. But I had my suspicions, and now I have seen them borne out.