Well the moment we have all been waiting for has finally arrived. Tom Delay has put out his biography, and I am sure that the people of Massachusetts will be breaking down the doors at the local bookstores to get their copy. Delay’s book, called “No Retreat, No Surrender” is reviewed by Norman Ornstein in the New York Times Sunday Book Review. While I have not read the book I was intrigued by the review. The Review claims Delay laments the politics of personal destruction, and has the nerve to claim that it was practiced against him. And what does Delay think of the left? From Ornstein’s Review.
And oh, those enemies! The main theme of the book is introduced early on: “I have learned something about liberals. They are much like Communists. They believe they have to destroy you in order to win. … Liberals in Congress have no ideas that history hasn’t disproved, and this leaves them pursuing only power. To get that power, they will destroy you — and if they can’t destroy your message they will try to lock up the messenger. Congress today is plagued by the politics of personal destruction.”
Naturally we all understand that Tom Delay never practiced such politics, and likening political enemies to communists does not qualify as such. When Tom is not crying about the “politics of personal destruction” he is busy explaining the multiple legal and ethical challenges he faced while in the House.
DeLay accepts none of the charges made against him, from his campaign finance violations to his relationship with his close and dear friend Jack Abramoff, including their trip to England and Scotland, with a stopover at the St. Andrews golf course, paid by Abramoff’s lobbying funds laundered through a nonprofit association. He responds to his accusers on everything from the multiple indictments and convictions of his staff members to his support for sweatshops in the Marianas Islands — a place he calls “the Galápagos Islands of free enterprise.” His comment on the admonishments and rebukes by the ethics committee? “Was Tom DeLay ever found guilty of ethics violations by the House Ethics Committee? No. Not once. Not ever.”
And how about President Bill Clinton. Well Tom is still not done with him.
And he goes after Bill Clinton throughout, interspersing personal attacks with laments about how his own opponents have perfected the politics of personal destruction against him.
With Tom Delay hating has now become bipartisan.
He hits Emanuel and Pelosi with dubious ethics allegations and rips the hide off of Dick Armey, his former House leadership colleague, for betraying him. He viciously attacks Joel Hefley, the conservative Colorado Republican who led the ethics committee that rebuked him repeatedly three years ago.
What a great summer read! For those not interested in Delay’s political observations you may be able to pick up some tips about starting your own pest control business.
Link to the review here.
Bill Manzi.com 
Your Honor’
Mr Delay surprises me as we all know that being a crybaby is counterproductive. It brings into doubt your judgment.
I hold no special place for him, even if he is a Republican (one of our scallywags).
I do notice you are quite selective on your gotcha stories.
(Slap on head) of course what else would you crow about on a “Lefty Blog”
Jules
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Jules,
I try to be even-handed in my “gotcha” quota, and I think it is fair to say that I have criticized Dems as well. Delay is a special case. I read the Wall Street Journal on a regular basis, and as you know they are pretty much the standard counterweight to the New York Times on the right. They were condemning Delay months before his resignation, for creating a Republican Congress long on earmarks and short on ethics. (A paraphrase). Besides all that I created a link to his book at Amazon, so you might say I was helping him to sell books. As a final note of self-defense I will point out that the other book I put a link up to was “Cape Wind”, which I am reading now. (and that book is not kind to our senior Senator, Ted Kennedy.) At Bill Manzi.com we are “fair and balanced”.
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Your Honor,
You win. I will try to fair next time.
I will say that you have too much respect for Harry Reid. I think he is a slime-bag. So go over to the Harry Reid story and i will add cometary.
A humbled Jules
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