Wonder if Kafka ever thought about sequels?

How does it feel to wake up and discover you're an albatross?

Exclusive: Tom DeLay Says He Will Give Up His Seat

Posted Monday, Apr. 03, 2006

Rep. Tom DeLay, whose iron hold on the House Republicans melted as a lobbying corruption scandal engulfed the Capitol, told TIME that he will not seek reelection and will leave Congress within months. Taking defiant swipes at "the left" and the press, he said he feels "liberated" and vowed to pursue an aggressive speaking and organizing campaign aimed at promoting foster care, Republican candidates and a closer connection between religion and government.

"I'm going to announce tomorrow that I'm not running for reelection and that I'm going to leave Congress," DeLay, who turns 59 on Saturday, said during a 90-minute interview on Monday. "I'm very much at peace with it." "...This had become a referendum on me," he said. "So it's better for me to step aside and let it be a referendum on ideas, Republican values and what's important for this district."

DeLay's fall has been stunningly swift, one of the most brutal and decisive in American history. He had to give up his title of Majority Leader, the No. 2 spot in the House Republican leadership, in September when a Texas grand jury indicted him on charges of trying to evade the state's election law.

...The surprise decision was based on the sort of ruthless calculation that had once given him unchallenged dominance of House Republicans and their wealthy friends in Washington's lobbying community: he realized he might lose in this November's election. DeLay got a scare in a Republican primary last month, and a recent poll taken by his campaign gave him a roughly 50-50 shot of winning, in an election season when Republicans need every seat they can hang onto to avoid a Democratic takeover of the House.

As much as I've enjoyed watching karma catch up with this well-scrubbed thug, it's too bad his arrogance couldn't have held out another few months. However entertaining his pathetic attempt to play the martyr has been, he really deserved to get run out a rail by the people.

As he nailed himself to the cross for the cameras, my favorite part was the bit where he lamented the fact that the campaign had become about him. Unclear on the concept much, Hammer?

The election had become a referendum on you? No kidding. Last time I checked, that's precisely what an election is: the people's opportunity to voice their support for, or opposition to how an official has done his job. Apparently in DeLay-land, the electorate should be more concerned with empty pontification about alleged "values" than with how their representative conducted himself in the office they entrusted to him.

Good luck to you, Tom. Maybe if you spend enough of your new-found free time letting the Freepers, Little Green Fascists, and RedHaters fellate you over your "noble" withdrawal in the face of the leftist consipracy, you might actually start to believe your own bullshit.