Posted on 12/19/2006 12:27:50 PM PST by Keyes2000mt
Dear Mr. DeLay,
I'd like to begin by welcoming you to the blogosphere. I'm so glad you have discovered the power of this medium to communicate directly with the grassroots of America. I'm also glad to hear your rhetoric about a need for Republicans to return to first principles.
However, there's an aspect of this whole business I find troubling. There's no mention of your own record in Congress in all of this. While you used your skill as a Whip and leader to obtain the votes necessary to attempt to save the life of Terri Schiavo, and forever earned the scorn of Democrats by getting the US House in the waning days of the 106th Congress to call Bill Clinton to account.
Yet, your leadership skills were not always exercised for such noble purposes. In 2003, you worked with the White House to coerce members of Congress to vote for the Medicare Reform bill. You kept the vote open for hours to get this bill passed despite the fact it was the largest expansion of government since the Great Society.
It was only 15 months ago that, in the midst of $300 billion deficits, you stated that Republicans had been pared government down to size. Contrast that with your statement on Red State following the elections: "Further, our government has almost become a self-sustaining organism which continues to grow and propagate programs without accountability and without results for the people it is supposed to serve."
How did what was "pared down to size" grow up to become an out-of-control self-sustaining organism in a mere matter of months?
In addition, while I do not believe there is merit to the indictments against you, you do deserve some of the blame for creating the atmosphere that allowed multiple scandals to plague the Republican Party through the influence of Lobbyists. The K Street Project had the net effect of creating a corrupt system where the power of special interests were magnified by a close allignment with Washington Power brokers.
Certainly, I, like most Americans, am forgiving. We've all made our mistakes and certainly power can blind people into making most regrettable choices. But, to go from a Majority Leader telling us that government spending is under control while working to secure Republican power on K Street, to declaring yourself a Grassroots Activists dedicated to reigning out of control spending, strains credibility and makes me doubt your sincerity.
Certainly, you're not the only leader trying to recapture '90s magic without having to face past mistakes. Speaker Gingrich has been out decrying the out-of-control Congress when it was during his leadership, the House began to break the budget caps. Those of us with a memory are not impressed by such posturing. Not addressing this issue suggests that you've really learned nothing from your mistakes and given the chance, would repeat them.
If you're going to help America, if you're going to achieve anything worthwhile, then you need to come clean about the increasing the size of government while you were Majority Leader and the control lobbyists exercised over our government. Mr. DeLay, if you wish to be part of the solution now, you must admit you were part of the problem.
May you and yours have a blessed Christmas.
Sincerely,
Adam Graham
The fact that this guy has no clue that DeLay was being sarcastic makes anything else he has to say irrelevant.
There is no argument that Republicans shot their own foot over the past few years which, is why thy are no longer in charge.
We re-elected ours locally and since no others were on the ballot there was noting many could do. Each had to face their local voter and justify another turn at bat. They clearly failed and by failing, failed the country.
I have listen to Tom being interviewed a couple of times and don't see him offering anything new and like all elected officials running for office that says we need to do this... I simply asked that that since none of that can be done without legislation, why have you not put forth the legislation?
I'm not sure what the purpose of this is. If Tom DeLay was too liberal for you, then you're never going to be satisfied with any lawmaker.
The fact that he was driven from office by bogus corruption charges tells you that the Left will not tolerate an effective conservative leader. They will destroy him/her any possible way.
Yup.
No, it may be a mistake, but it doesn't make the expansion of Medicare irrelevant, especially in the context of a conservative Republican and his statements.
I doubt that. There are a lot of lawmakers and potential lawmakers who scorn Part D, CFR, No Child Gets Ahead. I'd be satisfied with most of them. Gimme' a break.
Here we are a year later and Ronnie Earle is still sitting on the case.
Potential lawmakers don't count. I'd like to see a list of " a lot of lawmakers" who voted against those measures from the right.
Hang on there a sec muh man!
We now have Nick Lampson (a.k.a. liberal, never met a tax hike he didn't like)...For the next 2 years and possibly beyond...
But he's pro-gun, A+ rated, by our dear NRA and TSRA...So that makes him ok, I suppose.../sarcasm
Somehow I just believe that there is just no fighting left in the Republican voting block, for seats like this...
Now the "conservative" grassroots is going to have to work an uphill battle for the next two years to get the base organized and energized to vote the current numbnut out of there in '08...
But somehow I believe the focus of our party leadership will be more on the Presidential ticket in our district...
So it'll be up to us again to try and field a candidate to retake the seat...
And to think some people thought that '06 is over???
/sarcasm
Lampson will hold that seat for two years, but it's back in GOP hands again after that, especially if the primary voters select someone more appealing than Sekula-Gibbs.
Most Americans are ignorant of the blogosphere.
The Medicare stupidity lies square in George W. Bush's court. He's the one who wanted it. It was Tom's job to give it to him. Tom wasn't President.
It was either soon after he quit or right before that moment. Regardless of the exact moment, that was when I sensed the end was at hand.
I always liked Delay and thought he was poorly treated even by his own Party. Nevertheless, when he defended so much of the trash the Republicans in DC spewed to the nation he convinced me we would be best served if every ten years or so we lined ALL national Republicans into some kind of cue that would lead them to walk the plank above the Marianas Trench. Sure, we're bound to kill off the one or two that hadn't lost their way, but on average we would improve the blood line with whatever ones became the replacement set.
The Democrats didn't win the election last month. The Republicans, including Delay, forfeited the game. The thing of it is is, in doing so, they swept away many good local candidates for office, as well.
I'm not sure if the Party can recover. I think it can but will require leaders similar to the Delay of old. The Delay of that Rush Limbaugh interview is part of the problem and no part of the solution.
Sounds like an excuse a liberal would use. Face it, the republicans stood behind nobody not even Bush. There's more to it than "Tom DeLay was UNDER SIEGE from the Left the entire time he was in office".
This is politics.
At least we'll have a primary to vett out the usual suspects and then go head to head with the liberals this next time...
None of this chicken-shiite stuff we had to go through this last cycle...
Lampson is gone in 08 once TX22 gets a single Republican to unite behind.
Exactly why Republicans lost in this last election. They couldn't bring home to the electorate any discernible difference between themselves and the Democrats. That is why the scandals stuck. Preceived on this level plane, the Democrats had better candidates.
Republicans have bloated and expanded the Government. They gave voters no reason to vote for them.
All of the weenies want to say that we were to tough on immigration or we were too conservative. They don't have a clue.
Oooops.
Good "open letter", generally speaking, but the author apparently never got this DeLay joke explained to him.
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