The Hammer Returns

Tom DeLay at the Constitution Center.

by John Oliver Mason

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Published: Jul 18, 2007

In the back of Kirby Auditorium at the National Constitution Center, a young woman typed into a laptop adorned with a National Rifle Association bumper sticker: "The Second Amendment is not a loophole."

She was part of the audience July 16 for Tom DeLay, embattled former House majority leader, in town to hawk his memoir, No Retreat, No Surrender: One American's Fight (complete with forward by Rush Limbaugh and preface by Sean Hannity).

Gordon, a retired man, came because, "I have respect for [DeLay] because he sticks by his guns, and you know where you stand. The title of the book ... fits him to a T."

Judith, a realtor, said of DeLay, "I've admired him for years. ... I really don't care for political wavering, and you don't have that with Tom DeLay."

DeLay entered the auditorium with moderator Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor of the National Review. (Ponnuru's own book, Party of Death: The Democrats, The Media, The Courts, and The Disregard for Human Life, was for sale beside DeLay's in the back of the auditorium.) After Ponnuru summed up DeLay's career, DeLay spoke of his "real thrill being in the Constitution Center, [being] a Constitutionalist who has in my entire political career tried to get our public education system back to teaching the Constitution in this country."

Pulling a copy of the Constitution out of his jacket pocket, DeLay said, "It constantly [reminds] me, every morning when I get dressed, that there is such a thing, regardless of what has been done to it, especially over the past 40 to 60 years."

Of his conservative ideology, DeLay explained his pest-control business and his entry into politics: "Back in the '70s, right after the EPA was created by Richard Nixon," he said, "it started the regulation of pesticides and licensing of pest control companies, and of course the tax policies that followed. Basically I realized that government was a cost of doing business, and I had better get involved to hold down the cost of government."

DeLay recalled that his nickname in the state Legislature was "Dereg," because " I tried to deregulate everything."

But, he continued, "When I came to know Christ, after I got into Congress," DeLay decided that social issues had "become as important to me as the economic issues. I was against abortion, and I believe in the family, and I believe in family values, even though I didn't live those family values."

In his book, DeLay said, he wrote that he has "the utmost respect" for George W. Bush, commending his "leadership in the war on terror, under terrible conditions here at home, and through great adversity."

However, DeLay said the conservative movement is presently "leaderless. ... If you look at all the Republican candidates for president, there are some things I disagree with [in] every one of them. There's not a person I can jump and be excited about and lead my party in the 2008 election."

 

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