House to stay shut, absentees vow
Anything that chaps Tom DeLay's ass is by definition a very good thing- and since when is he the last word on patriotism? Yo, Tom, just in case you hadn't heard- Joe McCarthy is dead.
AUSTIN -- More than four dozen defiant Texas Democrats remained holed up in an Oklahoma hotel Tuesday, vowing to keep the state House shut down to kill a congressional redistricting bill being pushed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
"We have a message for Tom DeLay: Don't mess with Texas," said House Democratic Legislative Caucus Chairman Jim Dunnam of Waco.
In Washington, DeLay, R-Sugar Land, fired back by saying the Democrats "may not be patriots." DeLay said the Democrats created a partisan rancor in the House because they lost their majority in last year's elections for the first time in 130 years.
"Democrats lost their majority, and they can't stand it," DeLay said. "And instead of working with the speaker, they have fought him on every issue."
No, Tom; what we can't stand is having you and yours act as if having a majority gives you the right and moral authority to discount and trample your opposition. Y'all act is if a Republican majority is some sort of grand manifestation of God's will. Politics is about compromise, or as Tip O'Neill once said, "the art of the possible". Republicans in this state might want to consider that description.
I don't know if the Democratic disappearing act will, in the final analysis, get them what they want. I do applaud them for refusing to sit still while the Republicans roll them over. Perhaps the reason the Republicans are whining so furiously is that they are beginning to realize that their own intransigence has placed their agenda in some peril.
The message to Tom DeLay and Tom Craddick is rather simple, really: be willing to compromise, and your agenda can move forward. Continue practicing slash-and-burn politics, and nothing will get done. Your choice, gentleman.
