Exclusive: Tom DeLay Says He Will Give Up His Seat
Tom DeLay Quitting Race For 22nd Congressional Seat
Sources: DeLay to drop re-election race
Rep. DeLay Won’t Seek Reelection
DeLay won’t seek re-election: Ex-House GOP leader also likely to resign
Rep. Tom DeLay, whose iron hold on the House Republicans melted as a lobbying corruption scandal engulfed the Capitol, told TIME that he will not seek reelection and will leave Congress within months.
All right, y’all…repeat after me:
HELL, YES!!
I didn’t believe the news at first. After all, April Fool’s Day was only a couple of days ago. I’ve becomed so accustomed to DeLay’s pious arrogance that I couldn’t imagine him falling on his sword. All of us who’ve worked to keep the pressure on DeLay, to keep the fact that he’s a corrupt hypocrite part of the pubilc discussion should be proud and elated. I know I am.
(How HUGE is this? Well, to give you an idea, ever since TIME chose Our Glorious Leader as it’s “Man of the Year”, I have boycotted TIME, refusing to read, link, or even acknowledge the magazine. This represents at least a temporary truce.)
You’d think that DeLay, in bowing out, would have finally admitted to what most of us know to be true: that he has been to money and corruption what strippers are to professional athletes. Yeah, you could think that, but you’d be dead wrong . Blaming the “liberal media” for his downfall, DeLay clearly seems to feel that he’s the victim here. If self-imposed martyrdom gives him a degree of satisfaction, so be it. It may be self-delusion, but the end result is still the same, and that’s all I care about.
Taking defiant swipes at “the left” and the press, he said he feels “liberated” and vowed to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between religion and government.
Yeah, like we haven’t already figured out the GOP really DOES mean “God’s Own Party”, and the Republicans really are out to create a theocracy.
DeLay and his wife, Christine, said they had been prepared to fight, but that he decided last Wednesday, after months of prayer and contemplation, to spare his suburban Houston district the mudfest to come. “This had become a referendum on me,” he said. “So it’s better for me to step aside and let it be a referendum on ideas, Republican values and what’s important for this district.”
Months of prayer and contemplation? More likely DeLay finally saw the writing on the wall and came to understand that facing the likelihood of a prison sentence is a lousy way to ensure your re-election.
Being closely linked to Jack Abramoff no doubt took it’s toll, but a number of DeLay’s former aides have either been accused, convicted, or have pled guilty to corruption charges. Once would be unfortunate. Twice would be difficult to understand. Three or more and you have a pattern, which is exactly what’s been happening here. Tom DeLay became so convinced of his own invincibility that he simply stopped caring about the appearance and the reality of his corrupt, mean-spirited venality. That he has wrapped himself in flag and faith only serves to emphasize the depth of DeLay’s depravity.
DeLay’s fall has been stunningly swift, one of the most brutal and decisive in American history. He had to give up his title of Majority Leader, the No. 2 spot in the House Republican leadership, in September when a Texas grand jury indicted him on charges of trying to evade the state’s election law. So he moved out of his palatial suite in the Capitol, where he once brandished a “No Whining” mug during feisty weekly sessions with reporters, and moved across the street to the Cannon House Office Building, home of many freshmen.
The surprise decision was based on the sort of ruthless calculation that had once given him unchallenged dominance of House Republicans and their wealthy friends in Washington’s lobbying community: he realized he might lose in this November’s election. DeLay got a scare in a Republican primary last month, and a recent poll taken by his campaign gave him a roughly 50-50 shot of winning, in an election season when Republicans need every seat they can hang onto to avoid a Democratic takeover of the House.
Tom DeLay may be an arrogant, intolerant hypocrite, but he’s not stupid. He no doubt realizes things were not about to get any better for him, and the longer his legal problems remain unresolved, the less likely he was to win re-election. Instead of facing the usually token Democratic opposition, he would have had to deal with former Democratic Congressman Nick Lampson, a formidable politician and a skilled campaigner. DeLay knew that he would have been in for the fight of his career, and I’d imagine that it became difficult to remain optimistic with the black cloud that is Ronnie Earle hanging over his head.
Asked if he had done anything illegal or immoral in public office, DeLay replied curtly, “No.” Asked if he’d done anything immoral, he said with a laugh, “We’re all sinners.” Asked what he would do differently, he said, “Nothing.” He denied having failed to adequately supervise members of his staff, even though two of his former aides have pleaded guilty to committing crimes while on his staff. “Two people violated my trust over 21 years,” he said. “I guarantee you if other offices were under the scrutiny I’ve been under in the last 10 years, with the Democrat Party announcing that they’re going to destroy me, destroy my reputation, and that’s how they’re going to get rid of me, I guarantee you you’re going to find, out of hundreds of people, somebody that’s probably done something wrong.”
Arrogant to the end, and clearly unable to accept the reality that he created, DeLay no doubt feels the need to lash out at those he sees as being respsonsible for the implosion of his political fiefdom. It’s an understandable reaction, I suppose, and I imagine that most of us would react similarly were we to be an arrogant demagogue along the lines of Tom DeLay. Even so, this cannot and should not excuse the fact that Tom DeLay has since 1984 represented the intolerant, xenophobic, and theocratic wing of the Republican Party. With any luck, he’ll soon be doing the same thing from a jail cell somewhere in The Great State ofTexas. It doesn’t get much better than this, eh?
I’m usually not one to dance on the grave of someone’s career, but you’ll have to excuse me if I make an exception for Tom DeLay. I’m going to wear out my dancing shoes on the fresh turned earth celebrating the demise of perhaps the most corrupt politician of our time. It’s just too bad that the denizens of District 22 couldn’t be roused from their moral slumber to do this sooner.
Life is good, isn’t it? Yes, it certainly is….
Ding Dong, the witch is dead….
