Perfectly legal: who paid for Tom DeLay's trips? The more interesting question is why he went to Saipan at all--and what happened after he returned.(Dispatches)

THE TROUBLES HOUSE MAJORITY Leader Tom DeLay faces for allowing a lobbyist to pay for overseas trips in violation of House rules provide a perfect example of Los Angeles Times op-ed page editor Michael Kinsley's famous dictum: The real scandal is what's legal.

And the congressional rules that may yet ensnare DeLay suggest another truism: Congressional ethics operate according to the reverse-sieve effect--instead of catching major ethical lapses that have injured the public interest for years while allowing piddling matters to slip through unmolested, the system captures small, ...