He’s known as the Hammer. A runaway train. The poster child for ethically impaired politicians everywhere.

“When a man is in trouble or in a good fight, you want to have your friends around, preferably armed, so I feel really good,” House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told the National Rifle Assn.’s annual convention April 16 in his home turf of Houston.

Back in Washington last week, he told a conservative radio-talk-show host that the barrage of news-media questions about the ethics controversies swirling around him for months “certainly has gotten me closer to God.”

Get the picture?

The man who’s gone ballistic on “activist judges” after his failed attempt to get federal courts to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case now, under fire for a slew of questionable dealings, feels closer to God — surrounded by his best pals, of course, armed and dangerous. Just in case.

I don’t mean to make light, but sometimes you just have to poke a little fun at politicians who hold themselves up as victims of a vast left-wing conspiracy. (Didn’t the Clintons blame a right-wing conspiracy? What goes around, comes around, pal.)

And DeLay has been around.

He received three formal admonitions from the House Ethics Committee last year. In all, he has been admonished or received lesser warnings five times. No other member of Congress comes close in the ethically challenged department.

Yet DeLay sent his constituents an e-mail recently claiming that he has never been found to violate “any law or rule by anyone.” Who says a conservative can’t believe in relativism?

The admonishments stemmed from DeLay’s cozy relations with certain Washington lobbyists, which appeared to link legislation to political donations, for offering to support the House candidacy of one lawmaker’s son in return for a vote on something DeLay wanted, and for asking federal officials to track down Texas Democratic lawmakers who left town in the midst of a redistricting dispute.

Now he’s under fire for, among other things, putting his wife and daughter on the payroll for their work on political campaigns over the years (reportedly to the tune of about a half-million dollars). Then there are all those trips that somehow, DeLay maintains unbeknown to him, were paid by lobbyists — or in one case, by a registered foreign agent. Just little junkets to Russia, Great Britain, South Korea. Excuse us, “fact-finding trips.”

Another man from Texas, Jim Wright, had the sense to step down when it became clear he was facing a firestorm about his questionable dealings as House speaker back in the early 1990s when the Democrats were in charge.

Not that Democrats in Congress today are showing much leadership. They’re so bent on tarring DeLay that they’re failing to set their own agenda as far as Social Security reform, health care or an energy policy. On all those fronts you can find out what Democrats don’t like about the Bush administration’s policies or proposals. But don’t ask them to share their vision for what should be done, beyond a little tinkering around the edges.

So as much as Democrats are relishing that they have DeLay to kick around, it’s little more than a partisan sideshow, a big Democratic “gotcha” for being stuck in the minority party. It’s a waste of time.

They all seem to be playing politics on what should be fundamental rules of ethics that should guide every member of Congress regardless of political party. It’s telling that at least 10 former members of Congress, all Republicans, have written House Speaker Dennis Hastert urging him to reverse changes in ethics committee rules. Those rules were conveniently changed by House Republicans after DeLay’s last three reprimands — clearly a partisan GOP effort to make it more difficult to investigate him now.

Those are the kinds of shenanigans that Democrats pulled when they ran things for 40 years straight. Now the Republicans, only a decade into their power trip, are pulling the same kinds of stunts.

Trying to take attention away from himself, now DeLay hints that judges — even justices appointed by Ronald Reagan — shouldn’t be serving life terms if they don’t rule the way he thinks they should rule.

Never mind DeLay’s ethical lapses. Those pale in comparison to his agenda. We should all fear his attacks on the U.S. Constitution. That’s what makes him truly dangerous.

Myriam Marquez is an editorial page columnist for the Orlando Sentinel. Her e-mail address is mmarquez@orlandosentinel.com.