Why I love Tom DeLay....

[Rick Lee]

I still hate the earmarks, but flame away. And only do so after a thorough reading:

Hammering Away
Tom DeLay Is Direct, Uncomplicated -- and Unrepentant

By George F. Will
Thursday, January 26, 2006; A25

RICHMOND, Tex. -- Out here, where the tendrils of Houston's growing exurbs reach for open ground, sits Rio Bend, a cluster of new houses and other facilities for parents having difficult times with troubled foster children -- difficulties like those Tom and Christine DeLay experienced with several teenagers they took into their home. Rio Bend was built by the DeLays, with help from friends, of sorts.

She, an acerbic realist from south Texas, says more houses are planned by their charitable organization, but: "I hated to lose the leadership position because it helps me to raise money for those kids." Note her agreeably guileless acknowledgment that some friends of Rio Bend may not have been seized by simple altruism. She shares her husband's credo -- power is useful and should be used -- and knows the moral ambiguities it can involve.

He strides like a bantam rooster into the living room of one of the Rio Bend bungalows, having just been buoyed by an appreciative luncheon of 400 Realtors to whom he read a list of earmarks -- personally directed spending, aka pork -- he has delivered to his district. Most people, battered as he recently has been, would be curled up on the carpet in a fetal position. But DeLay is as direct and uncomplicated as the tool that supplies his nickname -- "The Hammer" -- and his faults do not include being a whiner.

Furthermore, he is not about to plea-bargain in the court of public opinion. He chafes under prudential reticence: His attorneys tell him not to trumpet the fact that the Justice Department told them he is not a target in the Jack Abramoff investigation. But about other matters, the bantam is belligerent.

Earmarks? Although recently "they got out of hand," they are, he says, necessary and proper because it is best to have spending dictated by a politician who knows his district's needs: "We are an equal branch of government -- why should we let a bureaucrat decide?" He says that in a state such as Illinois, which is dominated by Democrats "who play hardball," earmarks are the only way even House Speaker Dennis Hastert can get highway money spent in his district.

The K Street Project? That is, getting interest groups to hire Republican lobbyists, and to make such hirings fruitful by transactions using, among other things, earmarks? The author of this insists: "I'm very proud of it." In 1994 "we were coming as a Republican majority into a Democratic culture" in Washington. For 40 years, he says, the media had hired people congenial to sources who controlled Congress. And K Street -- the lobbyists' habitat -- hired Democrats to ensure access to Democrats. K Street Republicans "never got to see John Dingell or [Dan] Rostenkowski," two Democratic chairmen of crucial committees.

So, DeLay asks: In 1995, what do you think Democratic-dominated K Street was interested in? "Helping us get our work done? Secure our majority?" Those are rhetorical questions.

DeLay's Democratic opponent this fall will be Nick Lampson, a former congressman who in 2004 lost his seat in another district, partly because of the redistricting DeLay engineered that resulted in five additional Republican seats. DeLay won in 2004 with only 55 percent of the vote, partly because he thought that "to set an example" he should consent to making his district more Democratic in order to make others less so.

Referring to his trial on campaign finance charges brought by a notoriously political Democratic prosecutor, DeLay says, with a confidence that might be misplaced but clearly is unfeigned, "I'll be acquitted by the end of April." Then he says he will secure a 12th term, winning "the most expensive congressional race ever ." The national Democratic Party and several liberal groups -- already running ads and phone banks -- spend, well, liberally.

Because undecided voters are thin here -- he estimates they are about 13 percent of the district -- this election will be about mobilizing the faithful. So the piling on by his critics -- their wretched excesses in response to what they perceive to be his -- may help him.

Congress under Republican control has increased earmarks 873 percent in a decade and validated the axiom that the more solicitous government becomes, the more servile it seems and the more scorn it receives. Congress has not been so unpopular since 1994, when Democrats lost their 40-year grip on the House. But here on the east bend of the Brazos River, unlike on the Potomac, the fever for reform is not high. To a visiting columnist who waxes censorious about earmarks for highway projects, DeLay responds with a notable lack of repentance: "You just drove out on one."

[speeder]

So, he's a good guy after all and not corrupt? Glad you cleared that up.

[Rick Lee]

I don't think he's corrupt at all. Or at least I've seen no evidence of it yet. The article stated he's not a target of the Abramoff thing and the money laundering charges are a joke. If anyone is guilty on that one, it should be the RNC, since they cut the checks and DeLay does not tell them how to do so. But that has little to do with why I like Will's column today.

[Mulhollanddose]

You know if Democrats hate somebody or something, it must be inherently good or righteous...or their hate is simply feigned for political expediency.

[Rodeo]

Strutting your corruption like a peacock exhibits its feathers does not mean you are honest.

DeLay is a national disgrace. It never ceases to amaze me that the "conservatives" will attack liberals for overspending, yet support the biggest spender Congress has seen in decades. They will attack Clinton (rightfully) for selling the White House, yet condone DeLay's wholesale and open sale of the Congress to the highest bidder. They will ride their moral high horse, yet support a crook whose wife got a job through Amramoff and who takes golf trips to Scotland on Abramoff's dime.

The guy flew to his indictment in Texas on a lobbyist's airplane. That tells you all you need to know about him.

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by Rodeo
Strutting your corruption like a peacock exhibits its feathers does not mean you are honest.

DeLay is a national disgrace. It never ceases to amaze me that the "conservatives" will attack liberals for overspending, yet support the biggest spender Congress has seen in decades. They will attack Clinton (rightfully) for selling the White House, yet condone DeLay's wholesale and open sale of the Congress to the highest bidder. They will ride their moral high horse, yet support a crook whose wife got a job through Amramoff and who takes golf trips to Scotland on Abramoff's dime.

The guy flew to his indictment in Texas on a lobbyist's airplane. That tells you all you need to know about him.

He really eats at ya huh.