{"id":8858,"date":"2006-04-04T07:48:03","date_gmt":"2006-04-04T14:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/04\/04\/without-delay.html"},"modified":"2006-04-04T07:48:03","modified_gmt":"2006-04-04T14:48:03","slug":"without_delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/04\/without_delay.html","title":{"rendered":"Without DeLay"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s hard not to chortle a bit over Tom DeLay’s “fall” and resignation from Congress<\/a>. Here’s a man who both led and epitomized the hardball “We’re in charge, so back the hell away” GOP politics of the last five years. Here’s a man whose political epitaphs speak nothing of the good he did, but that he was “a hard fighter” and “effective” (the “effective” word keeps showing up over and over). Here’s a man who led Congress at a time of unparalleled (at least in recent years) spending, civil rights incursions, and entanglement of religion with law. <\/p>\n

And now he’s, effectively, gone, brought down not just by corruption charges but by convictions on his staff and an electorate that seemed finally fed up with the whole thing.<\/p>\n

DeLay will linger, like Newt Gingrich. He’ll write. He’ll serve on boards. He’ll be a fund raiser. He’ll attract attention (intentially and not). He certainly won’t go away. But his direct political power has been broken, fairly or not, either due to things he did or the sense of things he did. He’s done the best thing he could do “for the party” right now, falling on his sword and telling the public it’s because “liberal democrats” were using negative attacks and that he didn’t want the election to be “a campaign focused solely as a referendum on me” (why not?). It might — might — deflect some attention and let some voters forget about it all by November. But …<\/p>\n

I’m glad to see him go. Hope he’s the first of many.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s hard not to chortle a bit over Tom DeLay’s “fall” and resignation from Congress. Here’s a man who both led and epitomized the hardball “We’re in charge, so back…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2213,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/24\/tanj.html","url_meta":{"origin":8858,"position":0},"title":"TANJ","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Jul-02 6:33pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's one to give your blood pressure a spike. The former CFO of WorldCom -- the one who was fired when the company revealed $3.8 billion in accounting tomfoolery, and...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131798,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/10\/15\/on-republican-women-and-trump.html","url_meta":{"origin":8858,"position":1},"title":"On Republican Women and Trump","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 15-Oct-16 2:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Based on surveys, it seems that women (some widely publicized exceptions notwithstanding) who were Trump supporters are mostly still Trump supporters. They condemn his remarks, but believe that issues and policy still outweigh personal failings.'Vicki Sciolaro, chairwoman for the Kansas Republican Party\u2019s third congressional district appeared on Brooke Baldwin\u2019s show\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48165,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/16\/immigration-amnesties-past-and-present.html","url_meta":{"origin":8858,"position":2},"title":"Immigration amnesties, past and present","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 16-Nov-14 1:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As the article notes, Reagan and Bush Sr both used executive orders to extend immigration reform and amnesty far beyond anything that had been authorized by Congress. Obama is saying he'll do the same, which is causing folk on the Right to flip out, shake their fists at \"tyranny,\" and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":407,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/18\/over_my_dead_bo.html","url_meta":{"origin":8858,"position":3},"title":"“Over my dead body”","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-Apr-03 10:49am","format":false,"excerpt":"Demonstrating that not all GOP politicians are power-mad rapists of civil liberties, James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis) says he'll enforce sunsetting of USA PATRIOT Act provisions. House Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130713,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/20\/on-the-advantages-of-extremism-with-john-cleese.html","url_meta":{"origin":8858,"position":4},"title":"On the Advantages of Extremism (with John Cleese)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-May-16 5:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"It's great! It makes you feel good! There are very bad persons out there -- here's a list -- and therefore it's fully justified being an extremist! Just listen to John Cleese! He'll set you straight! View on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37809,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/14\/oh-look-another-gop-rep-mouthing-off-about-rape.html","url_meta":{"origin":8858,"position":5},"title":"Oh, look — another GOP rep mouthing off about rape","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Jun-13 6:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"Really? \u00a0Rep.\u00a0Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) didn't get the memo (or twelve) from the RNC to Ixnay on the Aperay Ommentscay? \u00a0Because he seems determined to maintain that whole GOP \"Pregnancy from rape is really rare, so why allow legal abortions?\" meme.First off, because even if Representative-not-Doctor Franks were correct, so what?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}