Commentary: Who Cares What DeLay Thinks

By Steve Banko

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wbfo/local-wbfo-577445.mp3

Buffalo, NY – Just imagine the panel assembled on Sunday morning talk to discuss the state of the economy. Seated at the table are the venerated Alan Greenspan, his successor as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, and Elmer Fudd. Envision, if you will, a roundtable discussion of personal investing featuring Suze Ormond, Jim Kramer, and Enron's Jeffrey Skilling. Absurd? Sure. But is it more absurd than a draft dodger like Ton DeLay lecturing a 31-year veteran of the U.S. Navy about patriotism? Certainly not. Most people will remember DeLay as the morally challenged, ethically casual, intellectually bankrupt hack who was chased from his leadership position in the House of Representatives by the Ethics Committee, a majority of which was Republican. They will also remember DeLay as the confidante and cohort of Jack Abramoff, of late residing in a federal penitentiary. They might also recall DeLay sensitivity in dealing with those displaced by Hurricane Katrina when he said to three young evacuees: "Now tell me the truth boys, isn't this kind of fun?" In more candid conversations, DeLay once told a waitress who asked him to extinguish a cigar in a restaurant that "I AM the federal government." On CNN, DeLay was even more candid when he denied he was a government employee, insisting instead "I am the Constitution."

Fewer might remember DeLay as the inveterate liar who once said "so many minority youths volunteered (in Vietnam) that literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." Yet there he sat - at the table with Joe Sestak, a retired Vice Admiral with 31 years of honorable service, pontificating about patriotism and telling Congressman Sestak that he isn't a patriot and can't support the troops in Iraq if he favors a timed withdrawal from that quagmire. Through it all, the other people assembled around the table kept straight faces and didn't gag on DeLay's perfidious twaddle.

Is that what passes for intelligent discourse these days? Laying aside the interrogative imperative of who cares a whit for what Tom DeLay thinks, forget what he says and consider what he did while still in a leadership role in the Congress.

DeLay promoted selective intelligence to lead the nation into the first pre-emptive war in our history. He voted and demanded others vote to sent troops off to war under-trained and ill equipped. His contention that "in the face of war, nothing is more important than cutting taxes" led the House of Representatives to under-fund the Veterans Administration that is charged with caring for the injured soldiers of the war he supported. One result of that under-funding was the recently exposed maltreatment of injured soldiers at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Another result of it is the continuing redeployment of troops already injured and physically suspect of being able to fight. To Tom DeLay and his cabal, "supporting the troops" means wearing that little flag in your lapel, slapping a magnet on your car, and cheerleading the continuing war without end, amen.

None of this, however, should be surprising. DeLay's radical politics once led candidate George Bush to tell DeLay to tone down his rhetoric until after Bush got elected. What is a surprise is that commentators inside the Beltway think DeLay is relevant to anything going on in Washington. He may give good quote but DeLay's intellectual vacuity is legendary. He was a hack and a hatchet man and a corrupt one at that. Yet he is invited to the table with thoughtful, intelligent people as though he were one of them.

The age of rich media, with all the news managed by the entertainment divisions of big corporations, makes for poor democracy. People like Tom DeLay make for dumb democracy as well. More importantly, it is insulting to have such a conniving partisan sit at the same table as proven patriot.

Listener-Commentator Steve Banko is field director for the Buffalo office of the U-S Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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