Someone Give Tom A Mint

William Raspberry says that it almost doesn't matter whether Tom DeLay is ultimately found guilty of the (now three) charges he has been indicted on. Rather, he likens it to something called the "Kablooey Principle."

That goes back to some experiments that involved dropping sand one grain at a time onto a steel plate. It accumulates into a neat little structured pyramid until at some point a single little grain causes the entire thing to go "kablooey"--that is, collapse into nothing more than a messy pile. The grain that finally does it is no different from any of the other grains; it's just that so much sand had piled up that the structure could no longer support itself.

It's kind of like the fat guy in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" who eats and eats and eats until he's completely full. Then the waiter entices him to have one little teeny-tiny mint, and the guy ends up going KA-BLOOEY all over the inside of the restaurant.

In DeLay's case, there have been so many ethics charges and allegations brought against him over the years that even if this particular case is not that significant, it may still turn out to be his kablooey moment.