DeLay Fumes At 'Law & Order' Quip

Sends Letter Accusing NBC Of 'Brazen Lack Of Judgment'

(CBS/AP)  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.