My colleague The Moose and I were talking this morning about an attack on Tom DeLay that was published by The Battalion, the Texas A&M student newspaper, which the Texas blogger Greg Wythe brought to our attention. I was curious about a reference Greg made to DeLay having once referred to A&M as a “den of iniquity,” and The Moose (a native of Waco) enlightened me with a great link: a 2002 article in the Baptist Standard, the official voice of the Texas Baptist Convention. Turns out DeLay told an audience of Texas Baptists that they shouldn’t send their kids to A&M or Baylor because these famously conservative schools weren’t really conservative any more, and were tolerating all sorts of immoral behavior. (Read the whole rich story, which also reveals that DeLay was booted out of Baylor for a “prank” he committed at–you guessed it–Texas A&M). I don’t know that much about Texas, but I do know two things: (1) there’s no percentage in taking a stance to the right of Southern Baptists on issues of personal morality; and (2) you don’t want to mess with the Aggies. DeLay papered over the furor from his disrespecting of Baylor and Texas A&M, but you never know how much ill-will got stored away for future reference. It’s like the old saying: Be careful who you step on as you climb the ladder, ’cause it can earn you a long, lonely fall from the top.