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I think Tweety brings this guy on his show just to irritate the hell out of liberals, but now Candy Crowley has decided that somehow this corrupt ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was worth the trip down to Sugar Land, TX so he could enlighten all of us with his wisdom as well. In what world is this man worth the time for a double length segment on a Sunday cable "news" show?

Of course Crowley doesn't actually ask him about any specifics on the charges against him and why he claims they are false and she also actually asks him if he's thought about returning to politics. As Driftglass said in his weekly Sunday Show run down, "I guess G. Gordon Liddy was busy". Wikipedia actually has a decent list of DeLay's "controversies" as they call it for at least a partial summary how corrupt he was.

Joe Conason has more on the double standard of the media in regard to Charlie Rangel's problems and this was written before CNN decided to grace DeLay with some air time -- A wave of phony indignation over Charlie Rangel. DeLay actually defended Rangel stepping down in this segment since mean old Nancy Pelosi "set the standard" with him.

You know, I might not be some high paid television anchor but if I had a chance to try to get this guy on the record about some of his corruption problems, I'd actually be mentioning the name Jack Abramoff. I'd also ask him why he thought that there weren't any forced abortions or labor abuses going on in the Mariana Islands. I guess that's too much to expect of Candy Crowley here or Chris Matthews for that matter. She'd prefer to ask him if he's thought about running for office again instead of asking him why anyone in their right mind would want him to run for office again. Hope you're proud of yourself there Candy. I thought John King was bad on this show. Crowley just took it to a new low within a few weeks of taking it over. Bravo.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Tom Delay thinks Jim Bunning is "brave." (But then, this is the same man who said, "By the way, there's no one denied health care in America. There are 47 million people who don't have health insurance, but no American is denied health care in America.")

Like most Republicans, he thinks you should be desperate enough to take any job you can get, even if it doesn't begin to meet your family's basic needs - especially the dignity-free, low-wage, low-security jobs so beloved of top Republican donors:

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," the Texas Republican said that Bunning's fiscal responsibility was commendable, even if his shenanigans (refusing to allow unemployment benefits to be considered by unanimous consent) nearly brought the Senate to a halt.

"Nothing would have happened if the Democrats had just paid for [the benefits]," Delay said. "People would have gotten their unemployment compensation. I think Bunning was brave in standing up there and taking it on by himself."

Asked whether it was bad strategy to make a budget stand on a $10 billion extension of unemployment (as opposed to, say, the Bush's $720 billion prescription drug package), Delay insisted that if the PR had been done right, Bunning would have been applauded. Helping the unemployed with federal assistance, he said, was unsound policy.

"You know," Delay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

Host Candy Crowley: Congressman, that's a hard sell, isn't it?

Delay: it's the truth.

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Clarence Thomas is suddenly upset that people have the audacity to criticize the Supreme Court. As long as conservatives attack the bench it's quite alright, but Clarice can't handle it critiques when they come from the left.

Questioning the Supreme Court and other government branches needs to stay within the range of fair criticism or "run the risk in our society of undermining institutions that we need to preserve our liberties," Justice Clarence Thomas said Thursday.

Thomas also told an audience at the University of Florida law school that some comments he hears about the court "border on being irresponsible."

He didn't speak specifically about the court's recent decision on campaign financing or mention President Barack Obama. But Thomas' comments come a week after Obama took the rare step of openly criticizing the decision during his State of the Union speech.

Thomas supported the 5-4 ruling that allows companies and unions to spend freely on ads that promote or target candidates by name.

Thomas said the court should be questioned but is bothered by some rhetoric with "the idea of assigning ulterior motives to opinions that people don't agree with, rather than saying simply that the court doesn't agree with my argument."

When Tom Delay, John Cornyn, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson declare open warfare against the activist Supreme Court, Thomas stays mute. Kinda like his behavior on the court except when he acts like an activist.

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Only after both chambers of Congress had already voted on the health care reform bills which will cut the deficit, AP on Saturday belatedly looked back at the deeply flawed and unfunded Medicare prescription drug program Republicans jammed through Congress in 2003. 24 hours later, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on ABC's This Week to add his to the chorus of Republican voices protesting that was then and this is now.

As Reagan Treasury official Bruce Bartlett told the AP, "As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt." In response, Orrin Hatch, who promised a "holy war" to block Democratic success on health care, explained Republican behavior during the Bush years, "it was standard practice not to pay for things." And Olympia Snowe (R-ME), the GOP Senator courted in vain by President Obama, suggested the tale of the 2003 Medicare Rx benefit should be swept under the rug, "dredging up history is not the way to move forward."

But it was Mitch McConnell, who along with his lieutenants Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) backed President Bush's Medicare giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry, who turned to misdirection to explain it all away to ABC's Jake Tapper:

TAPPER: Senator, you voted for that Medicare prescription drug benefit, which some say will cost $1 trillion over 10 years and was not offset by revenue or spending cuts.

MCCONNELL: Well, the first thing, you should notice that it came in 30 percent underbudget because of the competitive mechanisms that are involving in extending a prescription drug benefit to seniors. The Democrats criticized it at the time because it was not generous enough. And look, they have gone far beyond any deficit spending discretions -- indiscretions that Republicans might have had. In their first year alone, they ran the deficit up more than the last four years of the Bush administration combined.

As an act of political fraud, McConnell's statement was impressive, if only because of the off-the-charts ratio of deceptions delivered per word spoken. For starters, while this year's projected $1.4 trillion deficit dwarfs the figures from Bush's tenure, McConnell conveniently omitted mentioning that the budget Barack Obama inherited was already $1.2 trillion in the red when he took office in January. But more cynical still is McConnell's whitewashing of the scandal regarding the original estimate of the cost of Medicare drug plan, a forecast the Bush White House withheld from Congress in order to secure its passage.

Here's a look back at the fuzzy math and the dirty politics Mitch McConnell and friends don't want to talk about.

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Rachel Maddow and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss the GOP's hypocrisy when now claiming to be the great champions of Medicare after years of railing against it.

MADDOW: Belated salvo in the scare the bejesus out of elderly voters so they‘ll put you back in power regardless of whether you‘re telling the truth war is an editorial in the conservative newspaper, “The Washington Times,” and it screams “Death Panels by Proxy”—ostensibly argues that the so-called Baucus bill on health reform encourages doctors to withhold health care from Medicare patients. Health care reform is a secret plot to kill people on Medicare.

This is now become an ongoing strategic conundrum. How do you plan to win an argument with opponents who are undeterred by being disproven? Undeterred by the facts, when you don‘t even believe that they believe what they‘re arguing anymore?

It‘s not even just the “death panels” nonsense now. Take Medicare itself, a program Republicans have railed against since before President Johnson signed it into law in 1965. They railed against it since then until—well, until now.

Now, in the Senate Finance Committee, Republicans are trying to portray themselves as the champions of Medicare. They‘re fighting hard to kill any bill that contains any cuts in Medicare, even though people who support Medicare like, say, the AARP, say those cuts won‘t affect care.

Republicans defending Medicare. What would Ronald Reagan say? These guys do remember Ronald Reagan, don‘t they?

Here‘s what he did say about Medicare when it was just a twinkle in some socialist, fascist, freedom-hating, community-organizing Democrat‘s eye.

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From The Colbert Report:

Tom DeLay looked so happy on the floor of "Dancing With the Stars" you'd think he'd just been arrested on charges of corruption.

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I agree with Jack Cafferty on DeLay's appearance on Dancing With the Stars.

Cafferty: Did you show that Tom DeLay video yet. That's just disturbing...

Blitzer: If you haven't seen it...

Cafferty: It's just disturbing. It's very disturbing.

Blitzer: It takes guts to do that.

Cafferty: It takes something. I'm not sure guts is it.

Blitzer: Wild thing, you make my heart sing.

Cafferty: When he goes to prison they can show that, like the dances and stuff to the general inmate population.

h/t TPM Muckraker

From The Daily Show:

Mike Schwartz looks to adolescent boys for guidance on homophobia, while the unbelievably flamboyant Tom DeLay performs on "Dancing With the Stars."

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Had Roman-style vomitoriums actually ever existed, this video -- snippets of Tom DeLay dancing with Cheryl Burke for Dancing With the Stars -- might have been an ideal addition: certain to send you fleeing to talk to your Uncle Ralph on the big white telephone.

As it is, even Bill O'Reilly wonders if this isn't "the worst thing ever". And says it puts him in a mood for classical music. Then, of course, he calls him a "patriot" for having the courage to do this.

Actually, it reminds me of the old joke about the last words of the moronic redneck: "Hey everbody, watch thee-yis!"

The reaction of CNN anchor Kiran Chetry was actually about right: "It reminds you of your uncle who's had a little too much to drink at a wedding or something, doesn't it?"

We apologize in advance to our readers for their nausea.

As he awaits trial on money laundering charges, disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom Delay on Monday launched the latest phase of his extremist makeover on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Two years after publishing his book and 18 months after starting the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, Delay turned to the Cha Cha to complete his resurrection. Which is altogether fitting for the man who repeatedly compared himself to Jesus Christ.

Delay's Christ complex first manifested itself in 2001 as he explained to the Washington Post the opposition to his none-too-subtle campaign to bring his fundamentalism to the United States Congress. "People hate the messenger," Delay announced, adding, "That's why they killed Christ." On the day of his booking five years later, Delay told Time he prayed:

"Let people see Christ through me."

As it turns out, the similarities between Jesus and Tom Delay are striking:

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D-Cap has done a series of ten (!) photoshops in honor of Tom Delay's "Dancing with the Stars" gig.

Some of them may require brain bleach afterwards.

I wrote to D-Cap to give me a rundown of the personalities here in "Seven Brides for Seven Birthers" and he replied (L to R)

Tom and Babs
Newt and Malkin
Eric and Ann
Dicky Armey and Bachmann
Glenn and the Moose
Dick and his lovely daughter Mary.

Thanks to Tengrain for hipping me to this post.

Open thread below....

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(h/t CSAPNjunkie)
Tweety's love for Tom Delay is mythic as we all know so it's funny that he has to try and argue with him against the looney-birther movement. The fact that he loves them explains a lot. By the way, watching the Bugman talk about how he dealt with town halls is hysterical. He obviously treated town hallers better than members of his own party, but even Delay would probably have brought some pesticide with him at one today because many of the birthers are Ron Paul fans and they hate Republicans almost as much as they hate Obama.

Matthews: You're a man of the right and proudly so, I wonder whether you're even comfortable with the way it's headed. We've got people that we have people that question whether the president is legitimate or not. Whether he was born in the US or not and they mean it viscerally. It isn't something they just want to check his papers. They don't think he is. Where are you on that one?

We have people on the far right but they say they are birthers. How far do you go these days, Mr. Leader? Are you over with the birthers are you over with them?

Delay was trying not to answer the question and Chris kept coming back to it.

Delay: Well, I’d like the President to produce his birth certificate.

Tweety laughs...

Delay: Yeah, I can. Most illegal aliens here in America can. Why can’t the President of the United States produce their birth certificate?

Matthews: Are you actively seeking that paper?

Delay: Yeah.

Chris, will you do me a favor? Will you ask the President to show me his gift certificate — I mean, his — gift certificate — his birth certificate?

Matthews: No, I’m not going to ask him.

So he's looking for Obama's papers. The president better watch out. He also wants to get rid of Medicare and SCHIP and maybe the state of Texas too. Who knows....

Just because it's such a good opportunity to remember the n00bness that was Tucker Carlson on DWTS....

Think Progress has the whole nightmarish scenario:

Former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay will participate in the upcoming season of “Dancing with the Stars,” facing off against pop singer Aaron Carter, actress Melissa Joan Hart, and former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin. According to DeLay spokesperson Shannon Flaherty, “Anyone who’s seen him on the dance floor at convention parties or weddings knows he’s going to surprise a lot of people — and in a good way. This is going to be a fun campaign, and at least we know he’ll make it as far as Tucker Carlson.” (Carlson was the first contestant eliminated in the 2006 season.)

ZOMG! Apparently this is step one of the Delay Reputation Recovery tour so that he can someday have as much gravitas in the national arena as his similarly scandal-ridden cohort in the House, Newt Gingrich. I'm sure that next will be a Very Special Episode of 24, in which Delay saves the world with Jack Bauer.

I have actually never watched this show and this *guaran-damn-tees* I never will.

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Chris Matthews asks Rep. John Culberson to respond to Tom DeLay's whining about Texas being a donor state and points out that the states which are the biggest donor states are mainly blue states and the ones which receive the most are primarily red states. Of course Culberson has to try to change the subject and talk about not wanting our children taxed instead of answering the question. You sure didn't see any Republicans coming on the television worried about our children's future while Bush was breaking the bank. Matthews gives it another shot and then... what else could he possibly retreat to? Culberson pulls out the France/socialism boogeyman card.

Matthews: Do you think Texas has a special complaint against the union because you believe that you're a donor state. That's what Tom DeLay said last night. A special complaint. It turns out that a lot of the liberal states which you guys would call Democrat states up in the Northeast, states like New Jersey, are the ones that spend the most money in taxes. Now maybe they should be complainers like Texas but, they're not complaining. Why are you guys complaining? Why are the pitchforks so out in the rural states?

Culberson: Because Texas is, because we see Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama and this Congress trying to turn America into France. And Texas is not going to become France. We don't want to be a socialist, European nation. We treasure our freedom. We treasure local government. We treasure the right to let Texans run Texas.

Yeah, heaven forbid the US could become anything like that scary, scary France. The horror of possibly having nationalized health care, shorter work weeks and stronger unions. I don't know how we'd survive it. Matthews makes Culberson look as foolish as he is with his Texas loves America more than anyone nonsense that follows. They love it so much they want to leave it.

Culberson: ..the core point here is Texans have a special feeling in our hearts about what it means to be an American. And to be an American means the government should leave me alone and get off my back and get out of my way and get out of my wallet...(crosstalk)

Matthews: Who has that special feeling?

Culberson: More than anyone else I think Texans have a special feeling in their heart about what it means to be an American and the core values that made Americans...(crosstalk)

Matthews: You know how absurd that is Congressman. You say that you guys are more emotional about your Americanism and yet you've got a Governor talking about splitting from America. You know how absurd that sounds.

Culberson: He's not serious about it. Governor Perry...

Matthews: Why'd he..he did it all week this week. (crosstalk) You say you love the country but you're threatening to leave it.

Yes completely absurd and hypocritical but I'm sure they won't let that stop them from continuing with the absurdity. Never does. I want to hear that same tough talk out of these idiots the next time they have a hurricane and need some help from the Federal government.

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From Hardball April 16, 2009. Why oh why does Chris Matthews feel the need to keep bringing this man on his show. Tom DeLay defends Gov. Rick Perry's talk of secession for Texas and explains how it would work. Did Matthews actually expect anything else from this thug?

Matthews: You know Mr. DeLay all through the Bush administration the government money, the debt went rising and rising and rising. It went from something like four to seven trillion dollars to almost triple, double that rather and there wasn't this talk of secession or leaving the union or this incredible radical talk. Why is it coming now because we have a Democratic President?

DeLay: It comes all the time in the state of Texas. Texans are Texans and they fight for their sovereignty and fight for the Constitution of the United States. And every time the federal government mandates things from the state of Texas, the state of Texas is a huge donor state. We only get about seventy cents back for every dollar we send to the federal government. Now we're paying for a lot of this and the Americans, Texans are fed up with the government growing like it's growing. Uh, I tell you what the biggest skunk at the party is for someone to come into Austin. And we are absolutely fed up with what is going on as I think hundreds if not millions of people yesterday were expressing the exact same sentiment in these tea parties.

Matthews: You know that sounds like, you sound like some rebel leader in the sixties in the Congo in Katanga Province that produced all the mineral wealth for the country and wanted to secede from the Congo. I mean this idea that suppose maybe Texas does produce a lot of the wealth. A lot of states are wealthier than other states. They just are. Does that mean they should secede?

DeLay: Chris Texas is wealthy because it works hard. It's a pro-business state. It doesn't overtax its businesses and its citizens. It's no where near what California or New York or New Jersey that's losing businesses left and right. Losing jobs left and right. It ain't even close to what the rust belt is. We are a pro-business state. We love jobs. We love businesses to come to Texas. We will not overtax you. We don't have an income tax. We're, we're, that what people are coming to Texas is because of our ability and our penchant to fight for what we believe in and we're going to use every means possible, uh, legally to fight for our position and fight the Obama administration and the Democrat liberals Pelosi and Harry Reid in what they're attempting to do to this country and to the state of Texas.

Matthews: When you talk about the sovereignty of the state of Texas are you talking about nullification. What are you talking about? The right of the state to deny the role of the federal government. What right are you insisting on when you say sovereignty? Like it's an independent country again.

DeLay: It is an, it's an independent state.

Matthews: It is?

DeLay: And given many powers by the tenth amendment of the United States Constitution. The tenth amendment is violated every day in Washington DC and we're standing up and reminding the American people that the tenth amendment is strong and we're going to defend it and we're going to fight for it.

Matthews: So all powers not delegated to the federal government reside in the states. Right?

DeLay: That's exactly right and we ought to return to that Constitution.