Tom DeLay: He's a uniter

I consider myself quite the aficionado of anti-Tom DeLay editorials. This one may be the harshest I've seen yet.

THE LATE Okie troubadour Roger Miller sang about a man who treated his wife so shabbily that, during her testimony in divorce court, his own lawyer shot him a dirty look. That's when you know you're in for it. Poor Tom DeLay.

The House majority leader is now being pilloried by the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, whose specialties include cleansing right-wing lepers. But earlier this week, the Journal lit into the Texas Republican for a series of improprieties involving free-spending lobbyists, trips that Henry and Myrtle have to save 40 years to take, and Mr. DeLay's keen interest in legislation that the lobbyists who allegedly sprang for the junkets happened to be pushing. The Journal castigated Mr. DeLay as "the living exemplar" of some of Big Government's "worst habits."

The indictment, alas, fell short. In counting Mr. DeLay's ethical shortcomings, the editorial confined itself to his cowabunga dives into what is nonetheless conventional Beltway sleaze. His truly inspired offense against the Republic, in our view, was his engineering of a special redistricting in the Texas legislature before the 2010 Census--a novel gerrymandering ensuring GOP dominance of both Austin and Texas' congressional delegation. Now in-parties elsewhere are following suit, redrawing political boundaries in a way that robs voters of real choice as it enthrones incumbents.

What he has taken from democracy, however, Mr. DeLay has added to national unity: Here is a Texas Republican all can despise.

Note the subhead: "Tom DeLay is a certified stinker". These guys don't fool around. It should be noted, of course, that so far only the Republican-held Georgia legislature has followed DeLay's lead in mid-decade re-redistricting follies. Though there have been rumblings in Democratic states, Illinois at least has so far ruled out going down this path. I point this out since one might get the impression otherwise that the example he set was a bipartisan one.

All that is mere pettifoggery compared to DeLay's threats of retribution against those who failed to follow his own law in the Terri Schiavo case. There are already numerous threats of violence against Michael Schiavo, the judges who upheld the law, and the hospice where Terri Schiavo passed away. The people making these threats are some very ugly characters, and Tom DeLay is standing with them. If he had any capacity for shame, he should be feeling it now. He should also be feeling heat from all those who believe that threatening judges is a bad idea. I hope there's more of that to come.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 01, 2005 to Scandalized! | TrackBack