Maybe The Next Show On A Murdered Girl Will Feature A Reference To Teddy

Law & Order: Criminal Intent is suffering the wrath of Tom DeLay for a reference to him that the speaker said slurred him and trivialized the serious matter of threats to judges. I think the show did much worse than that.

First, the story, from the NYPost:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has fired off an angry letter to NBC, saying a character on Wednesday's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" "slurred" him.

In the episode, Detectives Goren and Eames were investigating a right-wing group's connection to the murder of an appellate judge.

"Maybe we should put out an APB [all-points bulletin] for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt," said Eames.

In his letter to NBC entertainment chief Jeff Zucker, DeLay wrote, "This manipulation of my name and trivialization of the sensitive issue of judicial security represents a reckless disregard for the suffering initiated by recent tragedies and a great disservice to public discourse."

"Law & Order" creator/executive producer Dick Wolf fired back, "Up until today, it was my impression that all of our viewers understood that these shows are works of fiction . . . "but I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show."

DeLay has been in hot water over alleged ethics violations.

Let's discount DeLay's bruised ego. The big problem here is that Dick Wolf is getting away with linking judicial murders to a right-wing group.

Have I missed a big story here? I know of thugs, brutes and misfits who have murdered or tried to murder judges. I remember Black Panthers, Symbionese Liberation Army members and other radical lefties calling for the murder of judges. But even in the highly emotional Schiavo case, none of the anger against the judges led to actions or even threats.

A couple weeks ago, a federal judge whose husband and mother were murdered also wrongly attacked the right, when her criticisms should have been directed to the federal government for not protecting judges against unpolitical nutcases like the one who murdered her loved ones.

Now Wolf has picked up this biased thread. He needs to disclipline the raging leftist hormones of his screenwriting crew. And he also needs a new key message writer. When you put a real persons name in a work of fiction, it becomes something other than a work of fiction.