Open Thread

April 4, 2006

Unfortunately, I have a few meetings this afternoon that I couldn’t get out of. They were scheduled weeks ago — I know, bad timing — and I’m going to be away from my desk for a little while.

So, here’s an open thread in which all of you can do my job for me discuss matters of national significance until I get back. Since Tom DeLay is the topic du jour, here are a few discussion-related questions:

* Any favorite Tom DeLay quotes/moments?

* Two House Republicans have resigned in disgrace in the past few months. Who’s next?

* Will today’s announcement have an impact on the November elections?

I’ll be back soon and will have additional posts this afternoon.

Tom DeLay quote to reporter Elizabeth Drew:
“You’ve got to understand, we are ideologues. We have an agenda. We have a philosophy. I want to repeal the Clean Air Act. No one came to me and said, `Please repeal the Clean Air Act.’ We say to the lobbyists, `Help us.’ We know what we want to do and we find people to help us.”

  • My favorite DeLay moment it today. Not only did he hang it up but he did it with balls the size of grapefruits swinging over his head (pardon the crude reference but the visual makes me wish I was a cartoonist). He quits and then proceeds to say I am doing it for the good of the party (not the country). Then he threatens Ronnie Earle, calls all the Democrats names, steals the money from the people of Sugarland who were dumb enough to give it to him, and starts telling everyone he cannot wait to start his new life. Not a hint of regret and not a hint of anything beyond the Republikan party. Classic, classless Delay.

  • “Will today’s announcement have an impact on the November elections?” – CB

    The Democrats need a tag-line for all their House ads that reads “Two is not enough!”. They can change that to three or four when Ney and Blunt are cleaned out.

  • I like my DeLay quotes fresh. This one was made only hours ago(via Think Progress):

    NOW: Okay, so at this point, you know — are you willing to let bygones be bygones?

    DELAY: Absolutely not. Texas should not allow a district attorney from Travis County have this kind of power. And they can take his power away from him because there was the Texas legislature that gave him this power. And I think that will happen in the next session of the Texas legislature.

    SNOW: Oh, really?

    DELAY: Yes.

    It would seem DeLay may have the ouster of Earle-not to be confused with the Duke of Earl, up his sleeve. The question is, will he find he has no power to do mischief once he leaves the House?

  • My favorite DeLay-related moment is McClellan talking about Bush saying that DeLay is innocent (while refusing to discuss another investigation):

    “The president was asked a question and he responded to that question in the interview yesterday, and made very clear what his views were,” McClellan said. “We don’t typically tend to get into discussing legal matters of that nature, but in this instance, the president chose to respond to it. Our policy regarding the Fitzgerald investigation and ongoing legal proceeding is well-known and it remains unchanged.”

    “Call it a presidential prerogative,” he added.

    A wee bit more here if anyone is interested.

  • Since this is an “open thread” I hope nobody minds a post off the topic of Delay…

    If anyone’s interested in plumbing the depths of right-wing craziness, go listen to the AFA’s “Today’s Issues” show from today (I think it’s downloadable from their site as an mp3).

    They had the guy who runs WorldNetDaily on today who, in a nutshell, said the ultimate goal of bush’s immigration policy is to make a single country out of Canada, Mexico, & the US.

    If you have a free half-hour today (he’s on halfway through the show) take a trip to bizzaro world & listen to the show.

  • “Before people look to cut a deal with the White House or their surrogates … it is my hope that one would spend plenty of time in the evidence room,” said House Majority Whip Tom DeLay. “If this were to happen, you may realize that 67 votes may appear out of thin air. If you don’t, you may wish you had before rushing to judgment.”

    Of course the evidence room contained unsubstantiated allegations about Clinton that Delay hoped to use to influence the Senate, which was then acting as the jury in Clinton’s impeachment trial. Talk about truth, justice, and the Republican way.

  • Right now, this is my favorite DeLay quote, from just the past 24 hours:

    “Oh, boy, I tell you, this is a Democrat Party that has no agenda, can’t come up with an agenda, has no solution. All they’ve got is the strategy of personal destruction and character assassination. And it hasn’t worked in the past, it’s not going to work in the future. They are a permanent minority party.”

    Yes indeedy, Hot Tub Tommy, y’all just go raght on whistlin’ past that ol’ graveyard. Y’all whistle real loud now on November 7, heah?

  • There’s just a never-ending supply of great quotes from Hot Tub Tommy, but these really are the Golden Oldies:

    “So many minority youths had volunteered for the benefits that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself.” (on why he didn’t serve in Vietnam)

    On the role of women: “I have seen these liberal psychologists and sociologists talk about there is no need for the man in the family. The woman can’t take care of it. A woman can’t take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability.” His wife, Christine DeLay quickly asked to “edit this out,” then turned to Tom and said: “This is not a good thing for you to be saying.”

    “It’s never been proven that air toxics are hazardous to people.”

    “The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills.”

    “I don’t believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church.”

    “Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist.”

    Responding to the Columbine shooting: “Our school systems teach our children that they are nothing but glorified apes who have evolutionized out of some primordial soup of mud, by teaching evolution as fact.”

    For those who have never been to Texas, and have wondered what the term “goat roper” means, the Unabridged Dictionary of Texas Slang now has a one-item definition of the term: a picture of Hot Tub Tommy (FYI, what it means is, “a person too dumb to rope a goat,” which – if you know anything about the nature of goats – is a pretty easy thing to do)

  • I think whatever impact this has in November will be determined when we find out what DeLay is doing in May/June when he leaves office. Is he pleading guilty? Will he flip on other elected officials? Will he see jail time? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion after these messages from our sponsors.

  • Favorite Delay Quote:

    “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?” Directed to three boys from New Orleans being sheltered at the Astrodome after Katrina. The emergency shelter was just like summer camp in ol’ Tom’s mind.

    I made the mistake of listening to “Talk of the Nation” on NPR this afternoon. The host, Neil Conan, spent the hour with a starstruck Time magazine reporter and a Republican consultant both portraying Delay as a martyr. It took a lot not to gag.

    Republicans will rally briefly against the “partisan,” liberal” onslaught. But I think they’re going to fall to pieces. That is IF Democrats press their advantage. Delay may have been the slimiest, but there are plenty of other ripe, corrupt GOP targets out there: Hastert, Blunt, Ney, Boehner, Frist, Santorum, Lieberman … It’s time to kick them while they’re down. What do Democrats have to lose?

  • Answer to prm #15: their permanent minority status. But the question is, do the Democrats have the balls to do it and the finesse to do it right? I don’t know; there have been so many missed opportunities that sometimes it looks like Dems are deliberately throwing the game. My favorite Tommy Boy moment? Not one of schadenfreude unfortunately. It was that great campaign stance and smile for the mug shot camera. It deprived the Dems of the sour, scared and sweaty criminial mugshot we’d been dreaming of. Republicans are like that–always pressing for the advantage, always figuring out how to play it for the cameras and keep their sick portrayal of reality going, without a wink, no matter how dire the situation, no matter how ludicrous we think it looks. And it’s worked so far. You’ve got to marvel at it. I don’t know if the Dems even know how to make a Kodak moment (and a great commercial) out of the beautiful vistas Republican corruption is handing them. And that just allows the Rethug imagemakers and corporate media spinmeisters to make us all feel good about evil. As Tommy Boy said (#5), we look at his mug shot and see Jesus smiling. Lordy…

  • From today’s The Plank (TNR). I’ll post it in full because it’s by subscription only:

    JESUS WANTS TOM DELAY FOR A SUNBEAM:

    Mike already highlighted one particularly rich part of DeLay’s Time interview, but this one has to be my favorite:

    When DeLay was booked on the Texas charges, he wore his Congressional I.D. pin and flashed a broad smile designed to thwart Democrats who had hoped to make wide use of an image of a glowering DeLay. “I said a little prayer before I actually did the fingerprint thing, and the picture,” he said. “My prayer was basically: ‘Let people see Christ through me. And let me smile.’ Now, when they took the shot, from my side, I thought it was fakiest smile I’d ever given. But through the camera, it was glowing. I mean, it had the right impact. Poor old left couldn’t use it at all.”

    There’s no doubt that the smile deprived Democrats of a nice campaign ad. But I also like how DeLay thinks his mugshot brought people closer to God.

    –Jason Zengerle

  • There is a good article up at the Dallas Morning News on DeLay. From the article,

    Washington ethics lawyer Stan Brand, a former House counsel who defended former House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski and other Democrats, called it curious that DeLay would resign.

    “Most members under a cloud stay as long as possible, because being an incumbent is something of an advantage in the legal process,” he said. But the Rudy plea put prosecutors into the “inner sanctum of DeLay’s office. … It’s hard to conceive of a situation where they indict these people around him, including people in his own office, and don’t go after him.

  • Jack Cafferty on Delay:
    “Wolf all the tough talk was reduced to, “I quit!” To borrow a phrase from Roberto Duran, “No Mas.” Mr. Delay suddenly became another disgraced public servant who couldn’t take the heat.” He would strut around on capitol hill like a cocky little, bandy rooster, but today he slithered away from Congress…”

  • I’ve never understood why anyone would say that DeLay deprived Dems, other opponents, or the public of a negative PR moment with his arraignment photo. I understood his (or anyone else’s) desire to avoid looking miserable or defensive. But who in the hell smiles and looks like he or she is posing for a high school senior class yearbook photo?! Every progressive or Dem spinmeister should have immediately recognized that picture as an illustration of a man revelling in his abilities to commit felonies and to subvert American government.

    Permission granted to use that comment (hint, hint)… with attribution, of course.

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