A Good Swift Kick

(via The People’s Republic of Seabrook)

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.

Molly Ivins is right, of course. There is certainly no lack of folks willing to take yet another kick at the cold, dead body that is the political career of Thomas Dale DeLay. I am a proud member of this fraternity, and I have no plans to quit…until I get bored with it. Eventually, I’ll decided that it’s time to move onto milking other Sacred Cows, but for now this one will do just fine.

Personally, I can hardly wait to see the taillights of the U-Haul van that carts DeLay and his belongings off to Virginia. Good riddance…but I imagine that DeLay will be welcomed with open arms by the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, folks who have helped turn Virginia into the homeland of Taliban Christianity. Anyone who has ever either driven through or spent any time at all in Lynchburg, VA, will understand what I’m talking about. Virginia is the only state in the US with a higher per-capita ratio of wacked-out religious nutjobs. Yes, DeLay will feel right at home in Virginia, where all manner of corruption and bad behavior will be overlooked as long as you are wealthy, White, and call yourself a “Christian”.

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, for instance, 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.

So many promises, so much optimism…and in the end it was the same old crap, merely a different party. In the case of Republicans like DeLay, though, they were able to wrap themselves in the warm embrace of flag and faith, and suddenly it no longer mattered that they were liars, thieves, and demagogues. They were Republicans, and they were men of God. And it was good….at least for them. They got the gold mine, while the rest of us were left with the shaft. From 1994’s “Contract On With America to today, Democratic corruption has been swapped for Republican corruption. Yes, the players have changed, but the game is still the same as it ever was.

WE DESERVE BETTER.