DeLay Gets Flushed

Buh-Bye, Bug Spray!

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
4/6/06
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/buhbye.htm

Hearing that Tom DeLay was quitting was a bit like getting news that Paris Hilton had a really nasty case of the clap. It left me with the feeling that, haphazard as it may be, there was some sort of justice running loose in the general scheme of things.

It wasn’t really schadenfraude, because let’s face it: nobody cared if Tom DeLay was unhappy about this or not. We were all just overjoyed that the vicious, corrupt, freedom-hating little son of a bitch was leaving. None too soon. Don’t let the door hit you on the ass, Bug Spray.

Even in a party that has brought us such luminaries as George W., Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and all the rest, Bug Spray DeLay stood out for his sheer vileness and arrogance.

Remember that this is the man who tried to excuse his lack of military service during Vietnam by complaining that black people had “taken all the good spots” in the draft, leaving none for him.

Even in defeat, the vileness and arrogance continue. He promises to bring ethics charges against Cynthia McKinney, who was involved in a minor scuffle with the capital security guards and who probably broke house rules in paying to transport some celebrities on a congressional jet. Minor stuff, the sort of stuff DeLay usually gets done before breakfast. And he was whining to a rabid group of falangists that “anti-Christians” had forced him from office. This isn’t sleaze catching up to a slimy operator; this is a war by the godless hordes against Jesus Christ, and His servant, Tom DeLay.

Yup. Old Tom just loooovvvveeed Christians. He thought they were the dumbest, most compliant sons of bitches this side of the K Street lobbyists.

Bug Spray did immense damage to the Congress and to America. His mad obsession to turn America into a one-party country in which Republicans ruled instead of governing led to such things as the mid-decade redistricting of Texas, a blatant case of gerrymandering brought about for the sole purpose of giving the GOP six unearned seats. He flat out told lobbyists that if they donated to or supported Democrats, they would not get any of their projects to the floor in the Republican-controlled House and Senate. Bill introduced by Democrats didn’t just die in committee; usually they never even made it to committee. Important committee hearings on such things as the budget and appropriations were held without any Democrats invited, blatant violations of House rules. And of course, the man who spent all his time howling that Jesus wanted Americans to have small honest government pushed billions off to various special interest pet projects. He vilified, he smeared, he was the one pushing the hardest to attempt to destroy President Clinton on the trumped up charges around Monica Lewinsky.

His nickname, “The Hammer” came from his ability to bully and strongarm people. He was a master at getting congressional reps to vote against the interests of their own constituents and for one of DeLay’s pet projects, simply by threatening to erase any effectiveness they would have in Congress if they didn’t toe the line for him. Democrats weren’t even given that poor choice: he simply did all he could to make their voice in the House completely irrelevant.

DeLay was a demagogue, and in all likelihood, a sociopath, so we’ll probably never know what, if any goals he had beyond self-aggrandizement. It may have been nothing more than that. His religiosity was nothing more than to create his own private army of doorknockers and letter writers to put pressure on his opponents.

If there is one man more responsible for the polarized atmosphere in Washington, and the unbridled authoritarianism of the GOP, than Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay is that man. He was the mailed fist behind Gingritch’s soaring rhetoric, the thuggery behind Dick Armey’s threats, and the arm-twisting that propped up the otherwise ineffectual Dennis Hastert as House Speaker.

He encouraged his minions on Jesus radio and on the right wing bloviator circuit to treat Democrats, not as opponents, but as the enemy, and did everything in his power to get people to equate opposing the GOP with treason.

It speaks poorly for America that he was so successful in this endeavor.

Still, he’s finished, and the GOP isn’t going to find it easy to replace him. The party, which was already showing deep schisms over the immigration issue (which the far right inadvisedly thought would be a meat-and-potatoes issue for the GOP) and only barely supported the administration on the last budget and the infrastructure appropriations bills, is now showing sudden gaps over the Iraq war. Four Republicans (including the hawk who wanted to show contempt for the French for not supporting the invasion by renaming the French fries served in the Capitol lunchroom “Freedom Fries”) have joined Democrats in calling for a floor debate on the Iraq war. Back when DeLay was Majority Leader, that would have been unthinkable. DeLay would have destroyed their careers for such an act.

The Democrats were quick to exploit his sudden fall, as well. They today, within hours of his announcement, introduced a wide series of reforms designed to put some teeth in the lobbying rules that they have named “The Hammer Amendments.”

It’s a good start. But the fact is that the institutional corruption that allowed DeLay to exist in the first place is still there, and it will only be a matter of time before another sharp young psychopath shows up, and it could be in either party. The same system that allowed DeLay to be so effective in short-circuiting representative government also went a long way toward toward neutralizing the checks and balances that usually contain such a monster after a brief period.

DeLay pressured lobbyists, but don’t be fooled: he was entirely the creature of a corrupt and venal system that gave the lobbyists far too much control, not only over how representatives voted, but over who gets to be a representative in the first place.

Demagogues are inevitable in any Democracy. But in a Democracy where the election process has been taken over by monied interests who control the funding of the campaigns, the parties, and keep representatives dependent on a daily basis for the lifeblood of donations needed to assure re-election, then a DeLay is not only inevitable, but necessary.

Unless and until America switches to a system that permits adequate public funding of campaigns, puts strict limits on lobbyists, and puts elections and ballot counting in the hands of independent authorities using verifiable vote counting methods, DeLay will represent, not a monster in a benign system, but an inevitable result of a monstrous system, and it will be only a short matter of time before the next such monster appears.