In a stunning move, Tom "the Hammer" Delay age 59 has decided to step down after a year of scandal including the whole Jack Abromoff corruption
mess. Peer usual Delay blamed liberals and Democrats for his downfall.
www.time.com
Rep. Tom DeLay, whose iron hold on the House Republicans melted as a lobbying corruption scandal engulfed the Capitol, told TIME that he will not
seek reelection and will leave Congress within months. Taking defiant swipes at "the left" and the press, he said he feels "liberated" and vowed
to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between
religion and government.
"I'm going to announce tomorrow that I'm not running for reelection and that I'm going to leave Congress," DeLay, who turns 59 on Saturday, said
during a 90-minute interview on Monday. "I'm very much at peace with it." He notified President Bush in the afternoon. DeLay and his wife,
Christine, said they had been prepared to fight, but that he decided last Wednesday, after months of prayer and contemplation, to spare his suburban
Houston district the mudfest to come. "This had become a referendum on me," he said. "So it's better for me to step aside and let it be a
referendum on ideas, Republican values and what's important for this district."
DeLay's fall has been stunningly swift, one of the most brutal and decisive in American history. He had to give up his title of Majority Leader, the
No. 2 spot in the House Republican leadership, in September when a Texas grand jury indicted him on charges of trying to evade the state's election
law. So he moved out of his palatial suite in the Capitol, where he once brandished a "No Whining" mug during feisty weekly sessions with
reporters.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
Good bye and "don't let the screen door hit you on the way out". While Delay blames others for his downfall, the real culprit is his own
arrogance, a trait shared by many (but not all) Republicans who feel that they have some right to rule and that the Democrats and liberals do not.
This attitude has become a poison in the body politics of our country...Phil Gramm another Texas right winger is reported to saying that they were
going to keep after Liberals and Democrats until they were hunting them with dogs. These people whom Delay typlifies have refused to discuss issues
that face all of us unless it was on their terms only...Delay along with Grover Norquist and Rick Sanitarium were the architects of the K Street
project which threatened lobbying firms that they would not do business with them if they hired Democrats and were the ones who systemitically locked
Democrats out of commitee meetings so they could craft bills to their liking without interference. He was also responsible for the (probably) illegal
mid-election gerrymandering of texas that gave the right wing a stranglehold on the house of representives. He's not retiring, like all bullies when
faced with serious opposition, he's running.
Related News Links:
www.truthout.org
www.washingtonpost.com
[edit on 3-4-2006 by UM_Gazz]
