Musings of a Dead Parrot

Tom Delay announced earlier this week that he will not run for re-election for his House seat. This effectively ends the Hammer's reign in the US House. He has run it like a fiefdom, rewarding those who offer him tribute and obey his commands and strictly punishing those who defy him. In a strict Machiavellian sense, he has been extraordinarily successful. There have been very few issues that were priorities to him or his party over the last 10 years where the House did not eventually act in accordance with his desire. His power even extended to the State legislature in Texas where he helped drive through a gerrymandered re-districting plan that wanted to ensure more Republicans would be elected from Texas to the US House of Representatives.

The pundits will miss him too. He often has made statements that are arrogant, ignorant or both. Check out the following (thanks to http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/stupidquotes/a/tomdelayquotes.htm for the source material):

1. I AM the federal government." –Tom DeLay, to the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14, 2003
2. "So many minority youths had volunteered…that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." --Tom DeLay, explaining at the 1988 GOP convention why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War
3. "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?" –Tom Delay, to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept. 9, 2005
4. "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power." –Tom DeLay, explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 interview with Fox News
5. "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." –Tom DeLay, March 12, 2003
6. "Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills." –Tom DeLay, on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999
7. "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide stability, I'm not saying that... It does take a father, though." -Tom DeLay, in a radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004
8. "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church." –Tom DeLay
9. "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist." –Tom DeLay, during a debate in Congress on increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996
10. "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." –Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995