What’s that long, low, pathetic whine I hear? Wait, I think I recognize the tone. Why, yes, it’s him… Tom DeLay!
DeLay, the thuggish former “Boss of the House” who resigned in scandal last year, is back. Not back in Congress, of course, nor is he back as the power broker he once was between the Republican congress and K-Street lobbyists. Instead, he’s back as an author, having written a memoir that he describes as “the life of a leader.”
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Some books are good history, some are good reads… Tom’s is a good whine. He pouts that everyone has been mean to him – a pretty lame claim from a guy who was known as the meanest man in politics. He lashes out at Newt Gingrich, calling him vain and an ineffective leader who tried to keep poor Tom from rising up. Likewise, former majority leader Dick Armey is accused of sabotaging him, and the book excoriates Armey as being “so blinded by ambition as to be useless to the cause.” And these are just the Republicans!
He also goes after Bill Clinton, calling him “slimy.” Can you imagine being called slimy by Tom DeLay? No, Tom, Bill is sneaky, smarmy, and somewhat skuzzy – but you’re slimy.
Then, of course, DeLay lambastes District Attorney Ronnie Earle of Austin for daring to prosecute him for money laundering. He whines that he was merely doing the Lord’s work when he funneled illegal corporate cash into Texas for his political purposes. Tom wails that Earle and a horde of leftist heathens are engaged in a conspiracy to destroy him.
Indeed, in the book, the noble, courageous, God-serving, heroic Tom DeLay is beset by enemies. It’s all because he’s a Christian and an outspoken proponent of moral values, he tells us – exposing both his messianic streak and a martyr complex.
This is Jim Hightower saying…. DeLay’s whining memoir inadvertently reveals more about him than his enemies – and it’s a sad sight.
“DeLay assails Republicans, Earle, ‘leftist’ in memoirs,” Associated Press, March 21, 2007
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