Novak gives DeLay a goodbye kiss

April 7, 2006

I don’t expect too much from [tag]Bob Novak[/tag] when it comes to even-handed political analysis, but his send-off for [tag]Tom DeLay[/tag] this week was over-the-top, even by [tag]Novak[/tag] standards.

For example, Novak praises [tag]DeLay[/tag] as an historic leader for our times.

He must be ranked with the [tag]great[/tag] legislative leaders of all time, such as Thomas Brackett Reed, Robert A. Taft and Lyndon B. Johnson. Nobody has been as effective in enacting the conservative agenda into law, which explains the intense opposition to him.

This kind of adulation usually doesn’t go to a lawmaker who was admonished by the House [tag]Ethics[/tag] Committee five times, [tag]indicted[/tag] on criminal charges in his home state, and forced to [tag]resign[/tag] in [tag]disgrace[/tag]. I can think of a few adjectives that come to mind, but “great” isn’t one of them. Then there was this gem:

There is no sign of extravagant living on DeLay’s part — only bad judgment.

No sign of [tag]extravagant[/tag] living? Novak apparently forgot about this AP story, published just a few months ago, which detailed DeLay’s royal lifestyle, in which the former Majority Leader “visited places of luxury most Americans have never seen, often getting there aboard corporate jets arranged by lobbyists and other special interests.” And finally, here’s the clincher:

DeLay told me last year that he accepted lobbyist-arranged golf abroad because that was his only chance ever to play a game he dearly loved. The shrewd congressional leader did not perceive the dangers facing him when he took that course.

Novak presents this as if it’s a reasonable, legitimate argument. In other words, Tom DeLay had to go to Scotland with Jack [tag]Abramoff[/tag], at the corrupt lobbyist’s expense, because there was no other possible for DeLay to play [tag]golf[/tag]. As if he didn’t already play golf in the DC area — and have a home adjacent to a course in Texas. Poor, innocent DeLay couldn’t possibly have realized that the trip may be perceived as controversial; all he wanted was a few rounds of the “game he dearly loved.” Right.

Maybe Novak could have just thrown DeLay a going-away party and used his column for something substantive, because this was just embarrassing.

I really think you are being hard on Novak.

DeLay really was one of the most effective leaders of all time. I think he was the single most powerful member of the house since I started paying attention in the early 70’s.

“This kind of adulation usually doesn’t go to a lawmaker who was admonished by the House Ethics Committee five times…” is absolutely correct but the fact that DeLay was ethically challanged doesn’t really take away from the fact that he was powerful and effective.

Honestly, who was the last member of the House who was as powerful as DeLay was? I really don’t know but I suspect it was a long, LONG time ago.

  • Effective BECAUSE he broke the rules.
    Delay could have been even more effective if he killed.
    In that light we are also being hard on Saddam.
    “Effective” is meaningless unless considered in context.
    Hitler was also effective and powerful.

  • “Honestly, who was the last member of the House who was as powerful as DeLay was? I really don’t know but I suspect it was a long, LONG time ago.” -Neil

    And may it be a long, long, long time before we see another like him.

    Threatening congressmen. Holding votes open for hours to get his way. Politics of personal destruction. Shear disdain for any American who opposes his positions. Dragging Christianity into politics and demeaning both.

    When effectiveness is achieved only through the abuse of power liberties and rights go right out the window.

    And this guy doesn’t want to give up his guns.

  • Honestly, who was the last member of the House who was as powerful as DeLay was?

    Neil, you raise a fair point, but I think the context matters. DeLay acquired an amazing amount of power, control, and influence. And if Novak’s only point was to make note of that fact, I would hardly find it noteworthy.

    But Novak’s column applied a value judgment to DeLay’s power — arguing that DeLay was a force of good. This is misguided. DeLay earned power ruthlessly and without regard to ethics, decency, or the law. He ruled, not through the power of his ideas, but through corruption.

    Power for power’s sake just isn’t impressive.

  • So we all agree with the fact that DeLay was one of the most *important* majority leaders. If only because no other leader so corrupted and weakened the legislative branch in so short a time in the history of the country. That’s how history will remember him, Novak notwithstanding.

  • What’s most interesting to me here is not whether Delay could be called powerful or phenomenally effective (yes he was–and because of corruption and ruthlessness) or a force for good (no, on substance and for the aforementioned reasons)–but the fact that Novak feels compelled to pay homage to him. This shows that Novak, and so many corporate so-called journalists and pundits, consider the system-gaming and even outright criminal behavior as entitlements of the upper and empowered classes. These are entitlements that Rethugs freely embrace–golf, war profiteering, no bid contracts and insider trading. Certainly, Novak explains, you can’t blame a guy for corruption when he’s just pursuing his love of golf. Oh, let them eat cake! Wasn’t it Dick “Call Me Darth” Cheney who once uttered the explanation for some outrageous transgression as “our due” for winning the election? Win and plunder. And don’t feel the slightest twinge of conscience or realization of wrongdoing because it’s in pursuit of what you are entitled to, your “due”.
    When Elliot Spitzer had the gall to bring insider trading to the attention of the public and judicial system, what got Wall Street indignant was not so much the astronomical fines which they were willing to pay (a small drop in their buckets), but the publicity that would clue Joe Paycheck into how he was being ripped off. They considered their high fees and after hours machinations their entitlement for riches. I think this is the story of our times–and maybe it was during the Robber Baron era too. But Novak represents the moneyed and empowered class (so different from you and me) who totally understand and hum along to “What I Did For Golf.”

  • Just in case anyone wonders just how totally inappropriate it is for Novak to compare a piece of trailer park trash like DeLay to Thomas Brackett Reed, Representative of Maine, I suggest you go down to the local library and pick up BarbaraTuchman’s “The Proud Tower,” and read her chapter on Reed, one of the truly great “unknown” American leaders and a truly towering figure in our history.

    Reed was the man who created what is the modern House of Representatives, establishing the power of the Speaker (which was used under his leadership to promote progressive legislation that had been bottled up before). And then, as the most-powerful Republican in Washington – more powerful than the President – he “threw it all away” on a matter of principle: opposition to the Spanish American War and the barbarian behavior of American troops in the Philippine Insurrection. He traveled the country with Mark Twain, who had just written The War Prayer that he read in public at the beginning of each rally, speaking against the war, against American Imperialism, and for an America that was true to its ideals.

    The Republicans, of course, destroyed him, and Joe Cannon then used his reforms to create the “despotic” Speaker that existed with small reform throughout most of the 20th Century and is still in evidence today.

    Tom DeLay isn’t worthy of being included in the same universe with Thomas Brackett Reed. DeLay is the poster boy for everything Reed campaigned against, as is the rest of the GOP House.

  • I really believe that these guys, and Novak is a good example, cannot believe that their dynasty is falling apart. They are mourning the loss of Delay, but they are really mourning the loss of their own credibility and power. Delay was a dog, a pack leader of starving, predatory wolves, making sure that all loyal pack members got some share of the prey. It is all unraveling, and people like Novak and Mathews can’t recieve the truth yet. I have no doubt that these so called journalists were on the take too. “The times they are a changing.” They are all in denial.

  • Not to overwork this, but Novak’s comparison of Tom Delay to Thomas Brackett Reed is so offensive, I’d like to take a moment here and post some things about him.

    Mark Twain, on the occasion of Reed’s funeral in 1902:

    “He wore no shell. His ways were frank and open, and the road to his large sympathies was straight and unobstructed. His was a nature which invited affection – compelled it, in fact – and met it half way… He was ransparently honest and honorable, there were no furtivenesses about him, and whoever came to know him trusted him and was not disappointed. He was wise, he was shrewd and alert, he was a clear and capable thinker, a logical reasoner, and a strong and convincing speaker.”

    Imagine what Twain would say at the funeal of DeLay!

    At the dedication of Reed’s bust in the House of Representatives in 1943:

    It would be most unfitting if oblivion were ever permitted to devour the memory of Tom Reed, the Speaker of this House in the Fifty- first, Fifty-fourth, and Fifty-fifth Congresses. He would also have been its Speaker in the Fifty-sixth Congress, but he disbelieved in the Spanish War and
    in the policy of annexation and imperialism which succeeded it. So he announced his intention to retire. “I have tried,” he said to his secretary, Asher Hinds, “perhaps not always successfully, to make the acts of my public life accord with my conscience, and I cannot now do this thing.”
    To his constituency he said with perfect justice, “No sail has been trimmed for any breeze nor any doubtful flag ever flown.”

    ”Whatever may happen,” Reed concluded, “I am sure the first Maine district will always be true to the principles of liberty, self- government, and the rights of man.”

    Here is exactly what Reed did that was so important, when he broke the power of the minority to prevent legislation by refusing to allow a quorum:

    On January 29, 1890, Dalzell reported from the Committee on Elections, giving a disputed seat in West Virginia to the Republicans. The Democrats raised the question of a quorum, only 163 Members having responded to the roll call (a quorum then was 166). Instead of ordering the roll to be called again, Reed looked down from the Speaker’s chair and, in what must have been one of the most dramatic moments in the history of this body, said: “The Chair directs the Clerk to record the following names of Members present and refusing to vote.” The House was instantly in uproar. Reed alone remained calm, and when the House for a moment subsided he persisted in his count of Democrats present and not answering to the roll call.

    Reed then stated at length the legal and constitutional reasons for his ruling with the precedents from other bodies in its support. For 3 days the House was a bedlam. Reed’s decision was denounced as corrupt. Men spoke all manner of evil against him. Reed admitted that he had broken all the precedents of the House, including those of Speaker Blaine, described by the opposition as “the most eminent of living Republicans.” But Reed boldly said that the precedents were wrong, pointing out that the word quorum, as used in the Constitution, meant a quorum of Members present and not merely a quorum of Members answering to the roll call. After
    prolonged debate, his ruling was sustained on appeal.

    Since that time. Reed’s precedent has become section 3, rule XV, of the House. The good name of the House has been saved. The transaction of its business has been facilitated. Party responsibility has been strengthened. Reed’s achievement stands as an enduring triumph for his
    vision, his courage, and his self-control.

    This last is particularly appropriate to think of nowadays:

    ”Unless the legislative branch of the Government can and will function
    efficiently, it is hardly in a position to exact efficiency from the administrative branch. On the other hand, an efficient legislature can exercise a powerful influence in the direction of orderly and competent administration which is superlatively necessary in time of war.”

    It’s interesting to look back to a time when there were Republicans who really believed in republican government. And I think the above proves how far the Republicans under the leadership of the likes of TomDeLay have sunk from that standard.

  • Gracious,
    If these guys are on the take–and in fact they are, that much is obvious–then they are obliged to keep up appearances no matter what. They are literally court bards singing heroic poetry to their masters for a few pieces of silver. That is why Matthews and Novak look so ridiculous right now. The fact that Tweety and Novakula occasionally depart from the script only underscores the factions and competing interests dividing the GOP, not journalistic integrity. But no one is in denial.

  • My late grandfather was a republican politician in California during the twenties and thirties. He authored one of the first old age pensions in the U.S., he was against the death penalty, and he was against prohibition. I wonder what happened to the GOP?

  • Mr Fibble:
    I agree that they do look ridiculous, and perhaps they are obliged to keep up the charade, but they really do need to take a few steps backward and take a good look in the mirror. This is really reminding me of Watergate and I believe that things are going to change radically and soon, Mathews and Novak ( and throw Bob Woodward in there too) may not have any journalistic intergrty left, but I am guessing that there are a few that still do. I’m waiting as I watch the paint dry. I’ve seen this before.

  • Clap, clap, clap, clap…

    What an outstanding thread on this topic. I learned a lot by reading Mr. C.B.’s post, but also from the many insightful, analytical, and informative comments. It makes me proud to be a part of the reality-based community AND of TCR.

    This thread does, though, also make me sad at just how base and ruthless our so-called politcal discourse has become. The vast and over-whelming majority of Americans are good and decent people, hard-working and law-abiding. That goodness and decency, and the hope that springs therefrom, are the only things that keep me from curling myself into a catatonic ball and and turning my lights out forever. I hope that my hope is rewarded, when Americans decide to take back their country from the thieves and scoundrels that have highjacked it.

    If somehow ES&S and Diebold again conspire to frustrate the will of the people this November, I predict that there will be blood in the streets of America and a people’s revolution to overthrow this new King George. I for one will be manning the barricades as we storm the “new Bastille” (i.e., the White House).

    P.S. For you NSA snoopers violating my privacy, this comment is NOT a threat to overthrow the government (i.e., not “sedition” or “treason”); rather, it is a prediction that we have reached the tipping point that WILL swing the pendulum back towards our real democratic ideals in this country — either at the ballot box or through armed insurrection, since peaceful protests are not even considered newsworthy anymore (let alone effective at redressing our political and economic grievances). Let the Lying.Fucking.Bastards be warned: it is your choice as to how change occurs in this country, peacefully or violently. What is no longer open to debate is that change WILL happen, and damned soon. Which is it to be?

  • It’s almost too bad that George Bush isn’t a king. Then he could
    make Delay a Duke or a Count and rank him with the hereditary
    nobility and give him a grant of royal lands.
    Fortunately, we are still a republic and if we wait long enough the
    fairytale world the Republicans have created for themselves will come
    to an end and we can all live happily ever after.

  • Tip O’Neil. Did a much better job and got to retire without being indicted and managed tog et along with the opposition and get things done for all americans. Delay is a thug. All you have to do is remember that the reason he got into politics was not because he thought it would be a good way to help people live better lives..It was all about Tom. He hated government regulations. His modus operandi was based on hatred of people and institutions. With that as the core of your purpose you are bound to be a looser sooner or latter. Unfortunately for America in delays case it was latter and we are all paying a price for his evil hatred of Americans who happen to not azgree with his Christofascist ideas.

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