The Ghost of Tom DeLay
The noise is deafening. You hear it too? It’s the sound of the Republican Party scrabbling, flailing and writhing, trying to get that albatross off their necks. A judge has just ruled — Again — that the albatross has to stay.
Republicans have made their bed, and now they have to lie in it. They have to wallow in it and rub their noses in it. And they will LIKE it.
Yesterday a Federal Appeals Court upheld a previous ruling that Tom DeLay’s name has to remain on the ballot, even though he resigned in disgrace and fled from Texas with his tail between his legs.
Last March DeLay won the primary for this November’s election. Three months later he resigned, and Republicans have been hoping to put another candidate on the ballot to replace DeLay.
This makes two judges now who have ruled against them. Will they finally get it, or will they keep on appealing the case?
The criminal indictments against DeLay had already been pending for months and months when he CHOSE to enter the primary last March and run for re-election. He’s been so used to running Congress with an iron fist and a bucket of sleaze, he just assumed our checks and balances would crumble beneath him. Wrong!!
The king is dead. And the king has to run for re-election. Gotta love it.
posted by Tom Harper @ 11:46 AM
16 Comments:
Well, I certainly hope Mr. deLay wins! Then what will all you whiners have to complain about then when the voters of Texas have spoken!
Carrie Oakey: Uh oh, if DeLay wins I don't know what he'll do. It's kind of hard to govern from another state, or from a jail cell.
"mr." delay...good one. when he gets to prison he'll make a good mrs. delay.
Spaceneedl: Yup, he'll be Mrs. DeLay before he knows it. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson from Anger Management -- he'll be passed around from cell to cell like a peace pipe.
I thought Delay was threatening to run again anyway?
I still don't see how the wingnuts and Tom Delay for that matter can live with themselves KNOWING that Tom Delay enabled the CNMI to hire women at slave wage levels, hold them indeffinately, force them into the sex trade, and force them to get abortions when they got pregnant.
How does that jive with the "snowflake baby" crowd? Embryos are sacred unless they are in the stomach of a Chinese sweatshop worker in the CNMI?
Well, don't look now, but Santorum is embracing the transgender community in order to garner some votes.
How come the wingnuts aren't upset about that either?
Where's Pat Robertson's hell, fire, and brimstone condemnation?
PoliShifter: Those are all excellent questions. You won't get any answers from the Rightwing Smear Machine or any of their drones. All they'll do is ask you why you hate America.
I think Santorum is finished. Hopefully DeLay will be convicted of at least one felony so he can't run for office again.
Annonny-maus: I agree there isn't much difference between the 2 parties. The Democrats are just the lesser of 2 evils (barely).
As far as "why are you IN America and not North Korea or Iran" -- what, disagreeing with the government means you don't want to live here? Come on, you can do better than that. Did you leave the country when Clinton was president?
There is no lesser of two evils. There might be an evil of two lessers. Democrats and Republicans are just two branches of the same party. Both working for the same thing. Total control of your life.
God Bless America, God Save The Republic.
tom, tell me you're not one of those apologists who equate democrats and the gop.
are you suggesting a democratic administration would've done no better than the current catastrophe?
i'm not a big fan of generalizations, but to say the democratic position on an array of issues is comparable to that of the gop is indefensible.
what republicans have done to this country (not to mention the rest of the world) in the past 5 years is beyond despicable--it's prosecutable. when it comes to "evils" in this country, the current iteration of the gop has no competition.
Spaceneedl: I'm afraid David Schantz is right, in a way. I like the Democrats' slogans and soundbites, but what have they done? Even being the minority party, they could be doing more. Every insane thing the Republicans have done -- the Iraqi war, the Patriot Act, bankruptcy "reform" -- they couldn't have done without help from some of the Democrats.
If both parties actually said what they meant and meant what they said, it would be a clear choice. Republicans want "less government," so that corporations can do exactly what they want and let the chips fall where they may. Democrats also want free enterprise but they want the government to serve as a referee so that people don't get trampled, the environment doesn't get scorched, etc. I've almost always voted Democratic so it's a clear choice for me.
But this current band of perverts has nothing to do with either party. "Limited government"? This Bush-Cheney fiasco makes George Orwell's nightmare governments look like Libertarians.
In order for Democrats to take back Congress this November, there have to be enough traditional Republicans and Conservatives and swing voters who are disgusted with Bush and his thugs in Congress. (And I think there are.) That's the only way Democrats will be able to take back Congress so they can start the impeachment process and get that shitstain out of the White House.
Annonny-maus: I guess that's one way of looking at it. But I think fewer and fewer voters are agreeing with you. We'll find out this November (and in '08).
anonny-mous, that's not THE most disturbing evasion of reality i've ever seen, but it's damn close.
if that's all you've got to say for your boy after five years of intentional incompetence, then we really have no basis for conversation.
tom, i'd be interested to hear what more the minority party could be doing, given that they lack the constitutional authority to hold so much as a tea party in congress.
come to think of it, maybe a boston-esque tea party might be in order.
Spaceneedl: Like I was saying, every abortional thing Congress has done has been with the help of some of the Democrats -- the Iraqi invasion, bankruptcy "reform" and the Patriot Act, among other things. One example of when the Democrats stuck together was keeping oil drilling out of ANWR. That's the one example I can think of offhand where they stuck together and thwarted Bush instead of bending over for him. They need to do a lot more of that.
Democrats had control of the House and Senate for Clinton's first 2 years in office (they had the Senate the whole time but lost the House in '94). Republicans were the minority party, but they made Clinton's life miserable with one maneuver after another. That's what the Democrats should be doing, and should have been doing for the past 5 years.
A few of them have spines (like Feingold) but too many of them have just cowered and let Rove smear them and paint them into a corner. We need more people like Feingold and fewer chameleons like Kerry and Hillary.
PS -- I'm ready for that Boston Tea Party.
I think it is absolutely wonderful and lots of fun to see the GOP finally starting to sweat about things. Sure they are still in control, but I don't think they will be in control of the House for much longer. If the Bush administration doesn't try some kind of perverse end run around that likelihood, he may find himself and his friends effectively neutered for the next couple of years, if not longer. I'm full of schadenfreude, but proud about it in this case.
The many screwups made by the Bush administration may well be separate from some of the other things going on in the GOP... but by virtue of them all being Republicans, the administration and all of these folks have concocted a pretty nasty stew of which even many of the diehard conservatives won't want to partake. It all adds up to a problem large enough that it could take years for the GOP to remove the stain.
They should enjoy being in control while they very likely still have just a few months left. Many lefties don't have much problem kicking the hardcore righties when they're up, but it will be much more fun when they're down. Hopefully that time will come soon.
Snave: Yeah, I think the Republicans' stranglehold will be coming to an end soon. That's the trouble with having absolute control of the government -- if everything is going wrong, you have nobody else to blame. I think you're right that a lot of traditional Conservatives and Republicans are totally fed up with this neocon movement and are ready to jump ship. It's about time.
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