U.S. House of Representative Majority Leader Tom DeLay accused NBC on Thursday of attacking him during the NBC drama “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”
DeLay’s name surfaced on Wednesday’s season finale, which centered on the fictional killing of two judges by suspected right-wing extremists.
In the episode, police are frustrated by a lack of clues, leading one officer to joke, “Maybe we should put out an APB (all-points-bulletin) for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt.”
In a letter to NBC Universal Television Group President 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.”
The Texas Republican continued, saying the “slur” against him was intended as a jab at comments he had made about “the need for Congress to closely monitor the federal judiciary.”
NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly responded by saying that the joke “was neither a political comment nor an accusation.”
“The script line involved an exasperated detective bedeviled by a lack of clues, making a sarcastic comment about the futility of looking for a suspect when no specific description existed,” Reilly said.
He added: “It’s not unusual for ‘Law & Order’ to mention real names in its fictional stories. We’re confident in our viewers’ ability to distinguish between the two.”
Leading Republicans have stepped up their verbal campaign against “activist judges” after courts failed to intervene to save the life of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who died after her feeding tube was removed at her husband’s request.
During that debate, DeLay said, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.”
Producer Dick Wolf, creator of the “Law & Order” franchise, wasted no time in ripping DeLay in his own statement on Thursday, saying, “I … congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show.”
Credit: Yahoo/AP
