Weekly Shredder 37:
Tom DeLay's Letter to Supporters
by James Norton

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is hanging in there, God bless him.

Sure, his own ethical recklessness means that he's under siege from a dozen different directions, including his own stacked House Ethics Committee. And sure, he's a total bastard. But that hasn't sapped his lusty joie de vivre.

The amazing thing is not that such a tarnished exponent of corruption and hubris is still standing. The continued power and prominence of Alberto Gonzalez, Donald Rumsfeld and John Bolton is proof enough that even the most damaged of Republican hatchetmen are retained as long as they stay inside the tent, pissing through the flaps upon the outside world.

For archives, audio, and background about the column, click here.

The amazing thing is that even as DeLay fights for his political life against an ethical quagmire of his own creation, he still has time to wage war against the judiciary, the last feeble worm in the scrumptious apple of power that the GOP has been contentedly munching for the past four years.

How does he do it? How does a public figure who co-founded a political action committee that boasts three indicted members, who is pals and allies with one of the dirtiest lobbyists in Washington and who has taken trips paid for by foreign agents manage to mount a scorched earth campaign against an entire branch of government that his own party dominates?

It's part of a remarkable three-part process that the Republican party has used on countless occasions since snorting the heady, empowering drug of post-Sept. 11 fear and outrage.

To illustrate this process, we grab chunks of text from a recent extremely long and extremely defensive letter DeLay sent to his supporters.

Step 1: Create a New Reality You Enjoy

This is the key. Why fight a losing battle based on the facts when you can steamroll your opponents in a make-believe world where you're completely blameless and your antagonists are a bunch of partisan doo-doo heads?

From Abu Ghraib ("a few bad apples!") to the Iraq intel distortions ("the CIA's fault!") to Social Security privatization ("these accounts will build bigger nest eggs!"), a really big, broad, simple lie is always the best bet.

Everything stems from this first step, so don't be afraid. Be really ballsy! What's the biggest, baldest lie you can think of? Is it memorable? Does it reduce your political opponents to dazed, sputtering indignation because it's so outrageous?

Good. So. What's a good one-sentence way to wipe away every one of the many charges leveled at Delay?

So yet again another Democrat leader and campaign chair have embarked on a similar campaign to demonize DeLay to distract the voters from the fact they have no agenda to offer for America.

Sounds good. Based on no facts whatsoever, the Democrats are just hunting for any high-ranking Republican they can get their hands on. DeLay just happened to fall within their crosshairs.

Why? Because there's nothing else they want to accomplish for America.

2. Anyone Who Attacks You is a Sinister Cog Within a Partisan Conspiracy

Everything loyal Republicans do is motivated by bipartisanship and a love of America. That includes constant declarations that everything done by Democrats is done for dirty, unprincipled, partisan reasons. (See my recent column on Frank Luntz for more on this tactic.)

In this spirit, DeLay doesn't just defend himself — he attacks one of his key attackers, Austin, Texas's District Attorney Ronnie Earle.

Texas Indictments: A Political D.A.'s Attempt to Criminalize Politics

The Austin District Attorney, Ronnie Earle, is a partisan Democrat who tries to undo with a grand jury what he can't stop at the ballot box.

Sensational stuff. But Media Matters has hit this particular spitball out of the park.

A June 17, 2004, Houston Chronicle editorial stated: "During his long tenure, Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has prosecuted many more Democratic officials than Republicans. The record does not support allegations that Earle is prone to partisan witch hunts."

A March 6, 2004, article in the El Paso Times offered further detail: "Earle says local prosecution is fundamental and points out that 11 of the 15 politicians he has prosecuted over the years were Democrats."

DeLay then follows up with a paragraph so bizarre as to defy easy comprehension.

Texas has only recently become a Republican state, so Earle's claim that he prosecuted Democrats too is a red herring.

What does this even mean? That because Earle went after Democrats while they were the party in power, he must be a... partisan Democrat?

This red herring is a red herring.

3. The Liberal Media is Out to Get You, Unless They Write Something You Like

It should come as no surprise that following the 2004 election-year attacks on the president that the Democrats, their syndicate of third party organizations (Common Cause, Public Citizen, Move-On, etc.) and the legion of Democrat-friendly press would turn their attention to trying to retake Congress.

Yes, there they go again: The liberal media, working hand-in-glove with sinister, George Soros-funded shadow organizations and the powerbrokers within the Democratic party to ruin their enemies.

And yet... somehow, The New York Times might be worth quoting on this particular case:

The New York Times wrote, "The trial testimony has not tied Mr. DeLay to any illegality or suggested that he was involved in the details of the fund-raising efforts by the political action committee."

(Phil Shenon, "Testimony at Texas Trial Focuses on Use of Donations," New York Times, March 3, 2005)

Conspicuously not quoted by DeLay:

Ten former members of Congress, all Republicans, joined in a letter to the House leadership on Thursday to say they believed that revisions in House ethics rules this year were an "obvious action to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay" from investigation. They said the changes needed to be reversed "to restore public confidence in the People's House."

...While it offers no conclusion about the merits of ethics controversies now swirling around Mr. DeLay, it says "the consensus in our respective districts" is that "the previous admonitions to Mr. DeLay for casting discredit on the House were well-merited."

The letter may be another blow to Mr. DeLay, who is under investigation by a grand jury in his home state, Texas, and is facing growing calls from fellow Republicans to answer accusations involving his financial ties to lobbyists and his management of his political and campaign committees.

(Phil Shenon and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "10 Ex-G.O.P. Lawmakers Attack Changes in Ethics Rules," New York Times, April 15, 2005)

Same author even. Phil Shenon: dirty liberal Democratic operative. Except on March 3... which, as everyone knows, is opposite day.

Or should we say, not opposite day?

Three simple steps, one consistent result: Victory over the real world. But every time the process is run, the polls sink a little lower, and the public's submerged anger runs a little hotter. President Bush's Social Security initiative may be a casualty of the tip of an iceberg of truth.

And as the administration takes on frigid water and slips beneath the waves, the last thing anyone will hear is Tom DeLay's twangy voice, crying out: "I'm the king of the world!"

Delicious.

E-mail James Norton at jim@flakmag.com.

— graphic by Derek Evernden (derek@ocellus.net)