More connections to uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The AP's Suzanne Gamboa has this installment of DeLay-mania.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay treated his political donors to a bird's-eye view of a Three Tenors concert from an arena skybox leased by a lobbyist now under criminal investigation.

[...]

The skybox donation, valued at thousands of dollars, came three weeks before DeLay also accepted a trip to Europe — including golf with Abramoff at the world-famous St. Andrews course — for himself, his wife and aides that was underwritten by some of the lobbyist's clients.

[...]

His defenders say the House leader did nothing wrong in the skybox case. Federal law at the time didn't require DeLay's committee to disclose or reimburse for the skybox gift, they note — though the law was changed to require such disclosure a few months later.

[...]

DeLay's boss, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, came to a different conclusion in recent days, reimbursing Abramoff for a political event two years after the fact. One of Hastert's political committees had used a restaurant partly owned by the lobbyist, and the Hastert committee decided recently to reimburse for the use.

Tom DeLay is stuck in an interesting news cycle in which old stories, under reported (or unreported) in the past, are finally seeing the light of day. Even if all of these actions were legal -- something unclear at this moment -- even the perception of corruption can take someone down. The more these stories come out, the tougher it will be for DeLay to shrug them off... and the less likely it will be that his Republican allies continue to shill for him