Law & Order Rips Tom De Lay

The Law & Order franchise on NBC prides itself on having plots that are "ripped from the headlines." Last night's season finale of Law & Order: Criminal Intent focused on the assassination of judges. Drudge transcribes a few lines of dialogue for us and provides context:

In the season finale, Detectives Goren and Eames suspect an imprisoned white supremacist is behind the shootings of a judge's family, but their investigation widens when an appellate judge is later murdered...

ADA RON CARVER (COURTNEY B. VANCE) : An african-american judge, an appellate court judge, no less.

MAN: Chief of DS is setting up a task force. People are talking about multiple assassination teams.

DET. ALEX EAMES (KATHRYN ERBE): Looks like the same shooters. CSU found the slug in a post, matched it to the one that killed Judge Barton. Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-Shirt.

This line is of course a reaction to the comments Tom De Lay made after the Terri Schiavo case, in which courts prevailed over the attempted overthrow of its authority by the legislative branch. What De Lay said then:

This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.

Matt Drudge reports that De Lay will release a letter of protest later this afternoon. We'll update once he has.