Molly Ivins: So Long, Tom, You Hypocrite

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0409-22.htm

Published on Sunday, April 9, 2006 by the Boulder Daily Camera (Colorado)
So Long, Tom, You Hypocrite
by Molly Ivins


AUSTIN, Texas — In general, I'm against kicking 'em when they're down ... unless really awful people are involved. I figured Tom DeLay is so awful, plenty of people would gang up on him and I could pass.

Imagine my surprise when the toughest question one famous TV tough guy could come up with was, "Do you think you invested too much in the Republican Party?" Another inquired whether DeLay could think of any mistakes he'd made. I waited with bated breath for the immortal, "I wish I could learn not to work so hard," but no, he couldn't think of a single one.

Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay first came to power promising to restore democracy to the House of Representatives, supposedly suffering from then-Speaker Jim Wright's tyrannical regime. Even after the Rs drove Wright from office, however, bipartisanship was out of the question for DeLay. In the budget fight and government shutdown of 1995, DeLay rejected compromise and famously said, "It's time for all-out war."

I never minded DeLay being a tough guy — it was his syrupy claims to carry the banner for Christianity that I found offensive, as he frog-marched the House toward being a cash-operated special-interest machine. The idea of putting pressure on lobbyists to give only to Republicans, pressuring lobbying firms into hiring only Republicans and then letting lobbyists sit at the table during committee meetings where legislation was written — it was just screaming overt corruption.

Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich turned the U.S. House of Representatives, "the people's House," into a pay-for-play machine for corporations. Put in enough money, get your special tax exemption, get your earmarked government contract, get your trade legislation and your environmental exemption, get rid of safety regulation.

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[muse]

1. somehow I missed this

This is really good. And, very sad.

Mostly, Tom DeLay makes me very, very angry. This just takes me to a very sad place. It's just such a damn shame that we had to put up with this man for as long as we did and that we'll have to clean up his mess for a very long time. This brings home why it's been so embarrassing and upsetting for him to be my congressman.