DeLay's Politico column on "failures" of the Democratic Congress rife with falsehoods
In his July 23 Politico column, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) wrote that "the defining characteristic of the new Democrat [sic] majority in Congress has been failure." DeLay claimed that the "collapse of the immigration bill is a perfect case study in the legislative idiocy that is right now posing as leadership in the Democratic Party," adding: "The Democrats wrote the immigration bill like it was 1977, when they commanded huge majorities -- behind closed doors, details kept even from their own caucus, as if confident their ideological pals at the networks and major newspapers would keep the story from the American people." At no point, however, did DeLay acknowledge that the immigration bill was actually written by a bipartisan group of Republican and Democratic senators, as well as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
Additionally, DeLay attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for "propos[ing] one earmark that would have funneled federal dollars into a San Francisco neighborhood where her family owns four homes." In fact, as Media Matters for America noted, the earmark was reportedly requested by the Port of San Francisco to improve the city's waterfront district, and the Republican Study Committee -- which first highlighted the earmark request -- acknowledged on its blog that the four buildings owned by Pelosi and her husband were all between one and two miles away from where the improvement project would take place.
The Politico regularly publishes columns authored by DeLay, who is currently under indictment in Texas on money laundering charges relating to a campaign finance probe -- charges that led to his resignation as House majority leader in 2005. Despite the fact that DeLay used its pages to baselessly accuse another lawmaker -- Pelosi -- of corruption, The Politico has made no mention that he himself faces charges of corruption in any of his columns or in at least two articles that mentioned him. DeLay was also charged with conspiracy to violate Texas election code, though a state district judge threw out that charge in December 2005. On June 27, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled against reinstating the charge, according to the Associated Press.
In his July 23 column, DeLay wrote:
Six months on, the defining characteristic of the new Democrat [sic] majority in Congress has been failure: failure to lead, failure to communicate, failure to organize, failure to deliver. It's normal for a caucus long out of power to have some tough sledding when relearning how to run the place, but this crowd is taking incompetence to a new level. Forget about the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) right now are riding at the head of the Gang That Can't Even Shoot.
The collapse of the immigration bill is a perfect case study in the legislative idiocy that is right now posing as leadership in the Democratic Party. The Democrats wrote the immigration bill like it was 1977, when they commanded huge majorities -- behind closed doors, details kept even from their own caucus, as if confident their ideological pals at the networks and major newspapers would keep the story from the American people. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid simply do not understand that you can't manage Congress in a vacuum of closed-door meetings and party discipline. The idea that a handful of senators could get together in secret, write a 1,000-page bill opposed by 70 percent of the American people, come down off Mount Sinai and demand a supermajority of support with less than 48 hours' lead time is even stupider than it sounds. Pelosi's and Reid's careers are far from over, but I think it's fair to say that Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson they ain't.
DeLay later referred to the failed immigration proposal as the "Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill" but gave no indication that the bill was developed and strongly supported by several Republican senators. The bill failed a June 28 cloture vote 46-53, though 12 Republican senators voted in favor of cloture and bringing the bill to a vote. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), one of the bill's strongest proponents, issued a May 25 press release declaring he was "proud to support this historic overhaul of our immigration system," and on June 28 announced he was "disappointed that the Senate was unable to conclude its debate on comprehensive immigration reform" after it failed the cloture vote. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) wrote in a May 29 column: "For weeks, senators and administration officials worked to forge a bill that secures our border, creates workable and effective interior and workplace enforcement, realistically deals with the people illegally here, and designs a truly temporary worker program that responds to the nation's fluctuating labor needs." Contrary to DeLay's claim that "Democrats wrote the immigration bill," the bill was actually a product of bipartisan Senate negotiation, with input from two Bush Cabinet secretaries, as the Associated Press reported on June 28:
The measure was the product of a liberal-to-conservative alliance led by Kennedy and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that forged an immigration compromise intended to withstand challenges from the left and right.
They advocated the resulting measure as an imperfect but necessary fix to the current system, in which millions of illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the U.S.
[...]
Bush made an unusually personal appeal for passage of the legislation, appearing at a luncheon with Senate Republicans this month to urge them to put aside their skepticism.
He sent Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, as well as his top policy aides, to spend hours in Capitol Hill meetings with senators over a period of months to develop and then help push through the deal.
The two secretaries were on hand to buttonhole senators as they entered the chamber for votes.
DeLay continued:
The worst of the lot, of course, is earmarks. The Democrats for years ran against the Republicans' supposed culture of corruption. Speaker Pelosi called for an end to all earmarks, publicly and repeatedly. She called for earmarks to be open to public scrutiny. She called for a ban on earmarks that would personally impact a member's finances. To date, every single one of these campaign pledges have been broken. Democrats to date have passed one spending bill, a continuing resolution left over from the previous Congress, and it contained hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks. Pelosi herself proposed one earmark that would have funneled federal dollars into a San Francisco neighborhood where her family owns four homes. Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) admitted on "Meet the Press" that $20 billion in pork was put into a bill to buy the votes of reluctant Democrats. And despite repeated pledges to the contrary, Democrats have made no move to require members to disclose earmark requests. Regarding the lowest of low-hanging fruit -- cleaning up the earmarking process -- Democrats have simply adopted the practices they once called corrupt.
Failures? What about his failures. Wasn't he a majority leader?
All anyone needs to know about Tom's stance on immigration is to hear his speech to the college Republicans.
[link to www.huffingtonpost.com]
He co-mingled the two hot button issues of the right: abortion and immigration.
He more or less said that if Americans hadn't has so many abortions, we wouldn't need illegal immigrants to cut our grass.
"Hot Tub Tom." would wade into a 1/2 full septic tank if he thought it would make the "Democrat" party look bad.
What I love is that, instead of being disgraced...fading into oblivion for breaking the law... these a-holes continually resurface with new 'street-cred'. That alone should tell you everything about the Republican party.
Is Tom DeLusional? This sounds like sour grapes to me -- and how very typical for DeLay to just throw every (valid) criticism made against him and his reign (incompetence, corruption, malfeasance) against Democrats, however false and unmerited. Someone please tell Tom Democrats in Congress remain more popular than both Republicans in Congress and our Republican president.
I think DeLay is maybe still smarting from his rather abrupt loss of power? How embarrassing for Politico to be associated with such sad nonsense.
Yo, King, you nailed it as usual. We need to keep pounding home the point that this slimeball and his cohorts did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except rubberstamp bushco's crap for 6 years! I mean what brilliant immigration bill did his worthless congress attempt to pass, or for that matter what did they do about anything that didn't benefit wealthy corporate types? I'll answer that--ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! (Sorry, just seeing the oily creep Delay's unctuous mug sets off some kind of physiologic reaction in me!)
I'm surprised this fellow still has any credibility left even among folks on my side (Right of Center). Delay's K-Street project was a corrupt enterprise and his own behavior was no different from the Democrats who preceded or succeded him. Some discredited politicians retire quietly, a few are jailed, pols like DeLay become "expert commentators" on FNC, MSNBC, and Politico, and the rest (like Nancy Pelosi and Murtha) get reelected to Congress term after term.
Good try, Genghiz. You almost gave an honest assessment of the Republican farm system, but couldn't make it without the reflexes kicking in to equate Pelosi and Murtha with DeLay.
A for effort, but you choked in the home stretch. ;0)
Funny how he throws out names, without backing them up with any valid means of wrong doing (except maybe Jefferson, who deserves whatever he gets anyway). Pelosi? What has she done? Nothing, except serve her district, this is why she keeps getting re-elected. I love the whole "you guys are doing it too" argument that most republicans post up when something goes wrong towards them. Most of the time, it holds no water, and even if there are democrats "doing it too", most dems that I know would likely renounce those people as well (if they're breaking the law and or have done something corrupt). I frequent a few political boards, such as this one and others, and everyone that I visit and post on, the mantra remains the same. The right wingers defend their criminals to the hilt, and the democrats always say toss them in jail (if indicted, and convicted).
Choked in the home stretch? I think he tangled his shoe laces on the way to first base, and fell down.
This tactic is so widespread on the right, that even editorial cartoons and the comics use it. The right leaning artist addresses a major right wing crime, and to "balance" their cartoon about a Republican, the cartoon includes something false about a Democrat.
One artist in our newspaper uses his politicaly themed comic strip to discuss politics, but twists the facts about Democrats on a regular basis. I see the comic becoming slightly more fact based, so there is hope. However; a year or so ago, his left leaning character brought up a crime that a Republican had commited, and the right leaning character countered that Democrats are no better, that Bill Clinton got away with rape.
What I love about Progressive programs, is not only do they present the stories about the Republicans, they have no problem taking Democrats to task if they did similar things. Even my progressive magazines take Democrats to task if needed. As evident in MMFA articles, the right can't talk about a Republican without making excuses to alter or soften the facts, and if they admit that the evidence does add up, they create a distraction....often spin about a Democrat to take the public's mind off the "facts".
I'll concede I don't like much of the financial maneuvering of many of the top Democrats. The DLC is poisoning the party. But they have yet to reach the levels of absolute corruption exhibited by hot tub Tom and the K street project.
Of course, they're failures - failures at mindlessly spending money like the pest controller and his Republic colleagues.
This just in: Congress is just as bad with Dems in control as when Repubs are.
BTW, I would guaruntee that the Pelosi's property values would go up as a result of locale improvements in the same district, only a mile or two a way. Please, MMfA.
Please, Dexter, that horse has been dead for weeks. By that logic, no representative could ever vote for any improvement which might possibly improve their home district, since any such improvement might cause their property value to go up. Give me a break.
Is that all you've got?
Well Nerzog, you didn't dispute that the Pelosi's would benefit, so I guess we can both call MMfA misleading on that one.
And yes, that's all I need. Federal money for state improvements in most cases is ridiculous. Send them block grants to do with what they wish or keep the money with the Fed and pay for your programs/give it back to the people.
And, repubs are just as guilty for doing this kind of stuff, and to me it's WORSE when they do it, because, to their credit, I don't hear democrats complaining about pork very often.
You're being dishonest. We're talking about improvements in the city of San Francisco, and she owns properties in the city as well. That's like saying that anyone who requests funds to clean up the Twin Towers site needs to disclose if they have an apartment in Greenwich Village. How dumb. It doesn't fall within the spirit or the letter of the disclosure rule, and Delay knows that.
No wonder Republicans lost their majorities - they put out dishonest stuff like this and then demand that people listen to them when it counts.
"Federal money for state improvements in most cases is ridiculous."
not when it's in our national interests. You can argue about whether or not this case applies but there are many legitimate reasons for federal funds for state improvements.
"Federal money for state improvements in most cases is ridiculous."
But for sheer ridiculousness, you can't beat dexteritas0071418 half-baked ideas.....
Well, it's just my opinion...and differs from yours, which believes in the idea that we can be a nationally-run state like France. I don't believe that is or should be the case, so that's where we'll disagree.
Ah yes, the old standard conservative ploy. When you can't win an argument, drag either Bill Clinton or France into the discussion.
Go get a clue.
Ports are a NATIONAL resource. How would Idaho potatoes get to foriegn markets without them?
Ever been to a "waterfront" area in a big city? Was that area full of cranes and shipping crates?
I think not. They tend to be close to ports, but are rather city beautification..social, commerical areas rather than industrial ports. Again, you are just not being honest with yourselves. I'm sure you would be if this was Rep. Boehner instead of Pelosi.
They're all the same.
I dont know what you are talking about but as a conductor I have been to San Pedro Harbor in LA, on the waterfront and YES there were LOTS of cranes and containers. Where the Longshoremen took the containers off the ships and loaded them directly onto the railroad cars. So no I am not being dishonest YOU ARE. There really isnt any question that ports ARE a national resource.
Solon, those cranes and containers are the San Pedro beautification project, and they make San Pedro look great.
At least compared to Wilmington.
Darn you. I was trying to forget Wilmington and Watson even existed. Brrrrrr.
Nope Dext, Pelosie's residence is within a quarter mile of the repairs. Considered opinion was she gets nothing special from the work. Check the archives.
The biggests failure of the Democratic Congress is that it hasn't yet impeached the War Criminals in the White House.
But they are getting a few things done after all:
and again:
Meanwhile, republican strategy is to have Bush shift a little left on Iraq in the mistaken belief that the left is more interested in hating Bush than they are in getting out of Iraq!
Who can get anything done when the sole agenda of the opposition is obstruction?
Well, the Republicans proved that in the 90s, didn't they?
Thanks Politico!!
I always like to get my news from a lying, corrupt conservative, currently facing indictment.
I guess Delay is practicing for his next role as Fox News' "Washington correspondent." What a joke.
Mmm...I was about to ask if Politico would continue to run DeLay's articles once he was behind bars. However, I then realized that DeLay will probably be one of Bush's exit pardons.
Other than Politico being a tool of the GOP and right wing in America, why would they have Delay write articles for them? He is under investigation and under indictment, and holds no credence any longer whatsoever. Also, I might, I say, might, listen to what he writes, except for the fact that he starts his whole tirade off by using the right wing talking point "democrat" instead of democratic, and I immediately don't listen to someone who spouts that off, because I know immediately where they're coming from if they're using that term to describe the democratic party.
So let's see. Democrats have been in control of congress for what now? A little under 7 months. Everytime they do actually get something done, they are chastised by the republicans and the other right wing "water carriers" for crumpling under republican pressure, and then when they don't get anything done, you get articles like this one. Bearing in mind that almost everything they've tried to do has been blocked, one way or another, by the minority party now (waiting for someone to trot out the old "they did it too" line again), and the things that they have passed, on certain occassions, have had Bushie old boy actually figuring out he had a veto pen in his pocket to begin with.
After all of my own tirade, it basically boils down to Delay is a shmuck, and has been judged irrelevant through his own vindictive words and actions from the past, not to mention, if he ends up in federal prison, I can't think of anyone deserving it more on a kharmic level.
Hate to break it to you, but if convicted Delay would go to a Texas state prison instead of federal one. The indictment is for a violation of Texas law regarding handling of campaign monies. However, Huntsville is no picnic!!
Any conservative type care to tell us how wonderful it would be today if they'd kept control of both legislative houses. Where would we be today?
Wonderful? Nah.
But I fail to see any real difference in the changing of the guard.
Maybe you can tell me why it's wonderful now with the Democrats in the majority?
As The Who once sang:
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
I'll bite.
I think that it is better with the democrats in charge of both houses, because it keeps the executive branch, possibly, a little more honest. But, so far, that really hasn't been the case with the Bush administration, as they've thumbed their nose at everything that Congress has asked them for.
I do firmly believe that we end up with possibly better legislation with opposing parties in the White House, and Congress. Clinton was a good example of this. He faced a hostile Congress for almost all of his 2 terms, but somehow, he still made it work, had to actually politic, work, and strive for compromise, something Bush didn't have to do, and this cost him, and this country greatly in my opinion.
I am hoping that if there is a democrat elected to President in November of 2008, that one, or possibly both houses of Congress go back to republican control, as I don't like to see the executive with more or less a blank check like Bush had for years 1-6.
Magnolia,
First off I agree with everything you wrote.
I've always felt our government works a heck of a lot better when one party doesn't have total control.
But I was looking for something specific about the present Congress. Like what have they done for us lately? Or at all?
But, isn't the title of that song "Won't Get Fooled Again"? Seems like we keep on gettin' fooled. Ugh.
Look at Jeter showing his age.
Quoting Pete Seeger in the other thread and now Pete Townsend in this one.
Looks like we DID get fooled again though.
If it's any consolation, I'm even older than you.
Jeter I think your wrong. The pace of legislation is twice what it was of the previous congress. I don't believe there would be any oversite by congress, if the GOP was still the majority party. A second surge would already be starting and any questions would be tatamount to treason. That said, no I don't think the Democratic side are all heros. I do wish they had about five more Senators though.
Tom DeLay should not be writing opinion pieces. He should be rotting in a prison cell.
I agree!!! Why is this man considered to be relevant? I love when he expounds the fact that he was not guilty of anything...THEN WHY IS HE NO LONGER IN CONGRESS??????? He should be rotting in jail.
Tom .... Say this: FILLIBUSTER.
There is no Democratic failure. The Republicans are FILLIBUSTERING every bill. This is a new phenominom. Democratics, in the past, used this tactic ocassionally. Now the Republicans are FILLIBUSTERING every bill they don't like.
Media .... Say this: FILLIBUSTER.
FILLIBUSTER is not a dirty word.
I will say this.
This is the choice and right of the minority party, at least in the Senate. If they want to obstruct everything going through, well then they can hold everything up procedurally, and unfortunately though, what we're left with is the MSM telling us that the democrats can't get anything done, or haven't done anything (of course without expounding on the fact that in a lot of cases, republicans are holding things up).
Media .... Say this: FILLIBUSTER. FILLIBUSTER is not a dirty word.
It's not a "dirty word", but it is a misspelled word. Not to be the resident school marm, but just one "L" in filibuster.
Oops, oh well.
You know how I could tell the column was a lie?
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wait for it...
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Tom Delay wrote it.
It's almost too bad the Repubs didn't remove the fillabuster while they were in control. Remeber hearing the phrase" up or down vote" repeatedly over the MSM. Imagine how many changes the Demcratic party would have made in just seven months? Or how many pens would run out of ink to the Presidents constant vetoeing? When Tom was a majority leader he said that the minority has no voice in the majority rule. Now all his party does is fillabuster and whine.