The Tom DeLay Defense: Their Only Agenda Is the Politics of Personal Destruction

Tom DeLay sends out an email to his dwindling, but fanatical, fan base.

It should come as no surprise that following the 2004 election-year attacks on the President

That’s called an election campaign, moron.

that the Democrats, their syndicate of third party organizations (Common Cause, Public Citizen, Move-On, etc.)

Oo, syndicate, that’s a really scary word, Tom. Very Murder Incorporated. Very machine-guns-in-violin-cases.

and the legion of Democrat-friendly press would turn their attention to trying to retake Congress.

Democrat-friendly. You make it sound so... dirty.

It would be quite easy to write an entire book about how Democrats, and many in the press, have chosen to selectively report and strategically ignore many FACTS about me and my work as Congressman for the 22nd District.

Yeah, go write a book, Tom, that should keep you out of mischief. Although watch how many WORDS you CAPITALIZE, it tends to make you look like a NUT.

Tom DeLay does not stand accused of any violation of any law or rule in any forum and has never been found to have violated any law or rule by anyone.

He prefers to remain seated. If he stands up too quickly, his toupee goes all askew.

Democrats and their Outside Front Groups are Colluding to Target DeLay

Very 1950s. I like how “outside front groups” combines McCarthyite rhetoric about front groups with Southern racist rhetoric about outside agitators.

Democrats have made clear that their only agenda is the politics of personal destruction, and the criminalization of politics.

Oh, and universal health care, some of them want universal health care.

They hate Ronald Reagan conservatives like DeLay and they hate that he is an effective leader who succeeds in passing the Republican agenda.

Bringing in the big guns. Really envy Ronnie’s teflon, don’t ya, Tommie boy?

He follows by listing the various ethics complaints he claims to have been exonerated on, although that “exoneration” tends to take convoluted, legalistic forms such as this (about his attempt to bribe Nick Smith into voting for the Medicare drug bill in exchange for DeLay supporting Smith’s run for Congress):

The issues raised by the conduct of the Majority Leader in this matter are novel in that conduct of this nature and the implications of such conduct have never before been addressed or resolved by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Indeed, the Majority Leader’s testimony indicates that he did not believe he acted improperly under House rules during his encounter with Representative Nick Smith. In addition, the Investigative Subcommittee believes that the relevant facts related to the Majority Leader’s conduct — described in detail in this Report - already have been fully developed. In the view of the Investigative Subcommittee, these factors mitigate against further investigation and proceedings in this matter.

See, wasn’t that a clear exoneration? Or maybe they called him a douchebag, I’m not fluent in gibberish. And if he didn’t believe he was acting improperly, well, ignorance of the law (or the ethics rules) is always a defense, isn’t it? Anyway, having defined exoneration to his own satisfaction, if no one else’s, he moves on to more Dictionary Fun:

An “Admonishment” is Not a Sanction ... The verb “admonished” was used and is now exploited to mean some sort of sanction.

Writing about this in October, I said that admonishment was “from the Latin word admonere, meaning to moderately chide someone with no sense of shame.”

The Democrats refuse to let the [Ethics] Committee meet because they are still trying to politicize the ethics process and block the Committee from doing its work.

How can they politicize a process they’re preventing from occurring?

Next, DeLay again falsely accuses D.A. Ronnie Earle of partisanship.

Texas has only recently become a Republican state, so Earle’s claim that he prosecuted Democrats too is a red herring.

Read that again; try to follow the logic. Warning: don’t read it a third time, as your head will explode.

The trip DeLay to Russia [sic] in 1997 and the United Kingdom in 2000 were proper.

Here I agree wholeheartedly: it’s the fact that he returned to the United States that I object to.


Tom DeLay, and friend