DeLay Fumes At 'Law & Order' Quip

House Majority leader Tom Delay fired off a letter to NBC Universal Television Group President Jeffrey Zucker Thursday calling "a failure of stewardship of our public airwaves," and a "brazen lack of judgment" a shot taken at him during NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" season finale May 25.

According to a transcript excerpt supplied to the magazine Broadcasting & Cable by Delay's office, the show's finale features a white supremacist who kills a judge's family, and the killing of an appellate judge. As the detectives hunt for the judge killer, Detective Alex Eames, played by Kathryn Erbe, said "Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-Shirt."

Saying he assumed it was a response to his comments about Congress closely monitoring federal judges, an obviously upset Delay wrote Zucker: "To equate legitimate constitutional inquiry into the role of our courts with a threat of violence against our judges is to equate the First Amendment with terrorism."

DeLay said in the statement that his comments were taken out of context.

"When a responsible journalist like [Fox News Channel's] Brit Hume made an inquiry into such comments, he quickly understood them to be limited to Congress's oversight responsibilities and nothing more," DeLay said.

DeLay was criticized for he comments made following Terri Schiavo's death, which came after federal judges declined to intervene despite Congress' passage of a law giving the federal courts jurisdiction to review her case.

"The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior," DeLay said in that statement. He later apologized, saying he had spoken in an "inartful" way.

While again admitting that his comments were made "inartfully," the congressman also tried to restate some of his concerns about the judiciary in his statement to NBC.

"Millions of Americans in recent decades have grown concerned about the expansion of judicial independence into judicial supremacy," DeLay said. "To compare such concerns, which, again, are shared by millions of Americans, to a violent crime is a reckless trivialization of a serious public issue."

NBC responded to the statement by saying, "This episode is in keeping with the spirit and standards of the Law & Order brand."

"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," said entertainment chief Kevin Reilly.

"This isolated piece of gritty 'cop talk' was neither a political comment nor an accusation. It's not unusual for L & O to mention real names in its fictional stories," the NBC statement said. "We're confident in our viewers' ability to distinguish between the two."

"Law & Order" series creator Dick Wolf responded in a statement that referenced alleged ethics issues involving DeLay's travel, dealings with lobbyists and fundraising, reports The Washington Post.

"Up until today, it was my impression that all of our viewers understood that these shows are works of fiction, as is stated in each episode. But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a TV show," Wolf said.