DEMOCRACY: Government & Politics | December 2, 2005

THE WIT & WISDOM OF TOM DELAY

(A LITTLE LEVITY & SOME SERIOUS BUSINESS)

By Douglas Drenkow, Editor of "Progressive Thinking"

As Posted in "OpEdNews", "Comments From Left Field", & "GordonTalk"

These "gems" have been making the rounds in cyberspace, but I thought them just too "good" to be true ... until I found some (generally reliable) sources cited by political humorist Daniel Kurtzman in good ol' About.com.

So now -- without further "delay" -- is an apparently accurate look inside the wickedly twisted mind of one of our favorite indicted GOP co-conspirators, The Honorable (puhleeze) Tom DeLay:

"So many minority youths had volunteered, that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." -- Tom DeLay, explaining at the 1988 GOP convention why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War (Source: Houston Press, as cited in Slate)

"Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" -- Tom Delay, to three young hurricane victims from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 9, 2005 (Source: Houston Chronicle Domeblog)

"I AM the federal government." -- Tom DeLay, to the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14, 2003 (Source: Washington Post)

"We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power." -- Tom DeLay, explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 interview with Fox News (Source: AlterNet)

"Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." -- Tom DeLay, March 12, 2003 (Source: The New Yorker)

"Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. 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." -- Tom DeLay, on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999 (Source: AlterNet)

"A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability, I'm not saying that. ... It does take a father, though." -- Tom DeLay, in an interview on the radio program "Roll Call," Feb. 10, 2004 (Source: Planned Parenthood)

"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." -- Tom DeLay (date unspecified) (Source: ExterminateTomDelay.com)

"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." -- Tom DeLay, during a debate in Congress on increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996 (Source: TomPaine.com)

"I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." -- Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995 (Source: Wikipedia)

And this ethically and intellectually indigestible digest of Tom DeLayisms is usually capped by a punchline that goes something like this: "So you see, my friends, there is a reason Tom DeLay is one of the most popular men in Washington. He makes the president look slightly less stupid by comparison!" Buh-dum-bum.

(To review some not-so-humorous escapades of one of the formerly most powerful people in America, you might want to read my articles "No DeLay" and "Tom DeLay, Russian Patsy?" in GordonTalk.com)

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