DeLay Tries, Without Much Success, to Duck the Media Pack

WP

Tom DeLay sneaks around the Capitol like a fugitive these days, using back doors and basement passages to avoid television cameras. He skips meetings where reporters might get a chance to film his answers to their questions. He makes unscheduled appearances so he won't attract a media mob and disrupt colleagues' events.

And it still doesn't work.

At 11 yesterday morning, the House majority leader made an unannounced stop at a meeting of a high-tech group. But word got out, and a score of reporters, producers, photographers, cameramen and sound men with boom microphones were there to greet him. When he left midway through the meeting, the pack chased him down a hall and up the stairs, shouting questions about the House ethics committee, which may investigate him, and prosecutor Ronnie Earle in Austin, who already is.

"Earle says you're America's problem," a questioner shouted. "What do you say to that?"