Dancing With DeLame

The DC chattering class is having a field day with the news that Tom DeLay will compete on Dancing with the Stars.  Hopefully he can burn off those calories he’s consumed over the years, eating steaks half his size (he’s what, 4’9”?), often paid for by government lobbyists.  I’m not one to make fun of one’s physical appearance, but DeLay is an easy (ahem) target.  He’s one of those politicians who built his career by tearing others down while keeping his cronies on the payroll.

Let’s remember that this was the fellow who, a few years back, responded to a restaurant manager’s request to put out his cigar because the restaurant was on property leased from the Feds, to which DeLay bellowed, “I am the federal government!”  So much for small government.  Well, DeLay is a small fry, so I guess he wasn’t being totally hypocritical.

A former exterminator, DeLay got his start in politics when back in the 1970s, he became enraged at an EPA regulation banning a particular pesticide.  Apparently his biology degree didn’t teach him anything, but when you spend your college years drinking and vandalizing buildings, studying photosynthesis wasn’t high on the list.  Since then, DeLay has based his career on his beliefs that government needs to back off regulation of the private sector, unless of course, they favor businesses in his native Sugarland and beyond.

DeLay entered the House of Representatives in 1984 as part of the “Texas Six Pack,” trolled up through the ranks, and as a good reformed Christian who no longer was fueled by martinis, led the Right’s charge by taking money from Russian oil executives, committed perjury in a civil lawsuit, insisted on keeping Terri Schiavo alive, and got caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal at the peak of his reign as House Majority Leader.

He’s got a book out, but apparently the advance isn’t enough, so he’s following in the footsteps of Marie Osmond.  I’ll pass on this train wreck: I think I’ll spend those evenings at the gym instead.