It's Good News Tuesday! Tom Delay has been praying up a storm, and presumably God told Tom that he has more important things to do than run for re-election. Some people give it up so they can spend time with their families, but we think old Tom is giving it up so he can prepare to do some hard time in the slammer. Maybe we should call today National Gloat Day!
In the snippets from Time magazine pasted below, the has-been gloats about his mug shot. The man so famed for being mean that they called him the Hammer, boasts that his phony ear-to-ear grin made it impossible for the Left to use the mug shot against him. Heh. Yeah, right Tom, and did you forget that it was a Democrat who got you indicted?
Yep, it's National Gloat Day!
Snippets from Time:
"I'm going to announce tomorrow that I'm not running for reelection and that I'm going to leave Congress," DeLay, who turns 59 on Saturday, said during a 90-minute interview on Monday. "I'm very much at peace with it." He notified President Bush in the afternoon. DeLay and his wife, Christine, said they had been prepared to fight, but that he decided last Wednesday, after months of prayer and contemplation, to spare his suburban Houston district the mudfest to come. "This had become a referendum on me," he said. "So it's better for me to step aside and let it be a referendum on ideas, Republican values and what's important for this district."
DeLay's fall has been stunningly swift, one of the most brutal and decisive in American history. He had to give up his title of Majority Leader, the No. 2 spot in the House Republican leadership, in September when a Texas grand jury indicted him on charges of trying to evade the state's election law. So he moved out of his palatial suite in the Capitol, where he once brandished a "No Whining" mug during feisty weekly sessions with reporters, and moved across the street to the Cannon House Office Building, home of many freshmen.
Putting the best face on the poll taken by his campaign, DeLay said it gave him "a little bit better than a 50/50 chance of winning reelection." Asked if that didn't mean that he could lose, he replied, "Could have. There's no reason to risk a seat. This is a very strong Republican district. It's obvious to me that anybody but me running here will overwhelmingly win the seat."
A Texas district attorney, Ronnie Earle of Travis County, indicted DeLay last year on money-laundering charges for transactions involving Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), a political action committee DeLay founded.
DeLay, a Baptist born in the border city of Laredo, said he "spent a lot of time" praying about his decision and that his personal relationship with Jesus drives his day-to-day actions. "My faith is who I am," he said. When DeLay was booked on the Texas charges, he wore his Congressional I.D. pin and flashed a broad smile designed to thwart Democrats who had hoped to make wide use of an image of a glowering DeLay. "I said a little prayer before I actually did the fingerprint thing, and the picture," he said. "My prayer was basically: 'Let people see Christ through me. And let me smile.' Now, when they took the shot, from my side, I thought it was fakiest smile I'd ever given. But through the camera, it was glowing. I mean, it had the right impact. Poor old left couldn't use it at all."
WaPo:
A December poll by CNN, USA Today and Gallup . . indicated that a credible Democrat could beat DeLay.
Tom Delay Bush 2006 Congress Texas Republican Corruption
