Someone Explain This to Me

The judge in the Tom DeLay money laundering case has been removed from the case. "DeLay's lawyers repeatedly said during the hearing that they were not accusing Perkins of doing anything wrong, but that there should not be a public perception of partiality in the case." This in spite of the fact that the judge in question has never been accused of bias in 30 years on the bench. They are also pushing for a venue change. The trial is set for Austin, "one of the last enclaves of the Democratic Party in Texas." So, a Republican can only be tried fairly by other Republicans? Perhaps the trial should be moved to DeLay's home district and jurors should be questioned on whether or not they donated to his campaign. Perhaps that means that defendants should be asked for their party affiliation and have the venues set accordingly. After all, we want to avoid even the appearance of impropriety when trying someone who has done been giving off at least the appearance of impropriety for years. And yet, he and his cronies had no problem defending the administrations right to conceal energy task force records, even though some were concerned about ethical issues there. They also disagreed with the calls for Scalia's recusal or removal when the energy task force case came before the Supreme Court, even though he had been on a hunting trip with Cheney and some other oil men. Cuz that doesn't appear biased at all. Arrrrrrgh!