Everyone's favorite troglodyte, Tom Delay is becoming more visible nationally. Good. Between his arrogance, and Preznit Horse Cranker's moribund intellect things are looking, well, pretty fine. The longer that Delay is around, the more Beloved Leader will be tied to him, and that's great!

At first, it was easy to believe that the storm clouds gathering around House Majority Leader Tom DeLay signaled little more than another Washington tempest. After all, most Republicans reassured themselves, hardly anybody outside the Beltway or DeLay's district in Sugar Land, Texas, had even heard of the Congressman, much less cared about his inflammatory comments about judges or his overseas junkets that might have been paid for by lobbyists. But not any more. Letters and phone calls to congressional offices about DeLay have picked up sharply of late, an aide to the House GOP leadership says.

"Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." - From a speech made to bankers [3/12/03]

* "I am the federal government." - DeLay was responding to a government employee who tried to prevent him from smoking on government property. As reported in the New York Times [2003 June 13]

"...I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution." - From "Talk Back Live" on CNN [1995 December 19]

"The judges need to be intimidated. They need to uphold the Constitution. (If they don't behave) we're going to go after them in a big way." - From the Washington Post [9/14/97]

On Clinton's military intervention in Bosnia:

"The President now needs to show leadership, consistently and with great clarity, from devising an exit strategy to developing favorable rules of engagement, from defining the criteria of success to detailing the timetables of operations. We have learned the hard way in this country that muddled military missions lacking clear leadership hurt our national credibility while putting our troops in harm's way."

“This is [President Clinton’s] war.” Washington Post, 4/14/99

“The Kosovo operation is different and oxymoronic. It is a ‘peace war’ waged by ‘peace hawks’ pursuing a dovish social agenda. Peace hawks are global idealists and former anti-war activists, including the youthful Bill Clinton.” Floor Statement, 4/15/99

“Instead of sending in ground troops, we should pull out the forces we now have in the region. Mr. Speaker, I do not think we should send ground troops to Kosovo and I do not think we should be bombing in the Balkans, and I do not think that NATO should be destroyed by changing its mission into a humanitarian invasion force.” Floor Statement, 4/28/99

But when Bunnypants started wasting people in Iraq (American and Iraqi):

“I think it's hypocritical to say on the one hand that you support the troops while on the other hand you say the reason they are risking their lives is wrong. I think it undermines the effort and the unity this country ought to be showing right now."- Rep. Tom DeLay, Washington Times, 3/20/03

“Well, I think it's not the time to be questioning this president on how he is carrying out the war. George W. Bush, thank God we have him as president right now and thank God that we've got all of the people that he has, really strong individuals that around him, fighting this war…The President’s doing it under great criticism, unfortunately, but hopefully, that criticism will now come to an end, and we we'll all unify and support our troops and support the effort and win the war.” – Rep. Tom DeLay, CNN InsidePolitics 3/19/03

“This destructive rhetoric does nothing more than demoralize our troops and second-guess our commander in chief.” – Rep. Tom DeLay, Press Release, 3/20/03

He and Quayle, DeLay explained to the assembled media in New Orleans, were victims of an unusual phenomenon back in the days of the undeclared Southeast Asian war. So many minority youths had volunteered for the well-paying military positions to escape poverty and the ghetto that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like himself. Satisfied with the pronouncement, which dumbfounded more than a few of his listeners who had lived the sixties, DeLay marched off to the convention.