Posted on 11/20/2007 8:02:04 PM PST by neverdem
After two terms as America's first president, George Washington used his farewell address to preach the benefits of unity and warn his young nation about the dangers of "permanent alliances" with foreign powers. Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell address after his two terms in the White House, urged Americans to restrain the unaccountable power of the "military- industrial complex."
When Republican Representative Tom DeLay of Texas retired under fire in June 2006 after nearly twenty-two years in Congress, he chose to warn against a different threat: too much cooperation between the Democratic and Republican parties.
This might not have seemed a pressing danger to many in the Capitol or anyone around the country watching the evolution of American political life over the past several decades. On most issues, the two parties now spend most days at each other's throats. On both sides, the number of legislators who seek to build alliances across party lines, or even dissent from their own party on key votes, is much smaller than a generation ago. Reversing the famous dictum of Carl von Clausewitz, in contemporary Washington politics often seems the extension of war by other means.
DeLay could claim some credit for that condition. A former pest exterminator and Texas state legislator from Sugar Land, Texas, outside of Houston, he was first elected during Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1984. Intently religious and devoutly conservative, DeLay always recoiled from the conciliatory, deal-making style that House Republican leaders, led by Bob Michel of Illinois, applied to their relationship with the Democratic House majority in the 1970s and 1980s. But DeLay was also a skilled practitioner of practical politics, accomplished at building the alliances with other members that provide the foundation for advancement in the House. In 1989, DeLay placed a bad bet when he managed...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationaljournal.com ...
The key word here is “was”. what he has been saying lately is not really too helpful.
Could you be more specific?
To compromise with the socialist left is to surrender to incrementalism. The right needs to stand their ground. Dang I miss Tom Delay
To compromise with the socialist left is to surrender to incrementalism. The right needs to stand their ground. Dang I miss Tom Delay
This writer, Browenstein, is a complete fraud. He doesn’t want a better way or a more popular way. He specifically wants conservatives to reject their principles and water down their ideas to be more “inclusive” so that the majorities that write and pass legislation are larger.On the OTHER hand, he sees no reason why leftists and liberals should compromise.
This guy can be rejected as a partisan liar right out of hand.
DeLay was a giant. Although Newt’s Contract won us our majority in 1994, DeLay held it together on key issues until the Iraq war and the corruption scandals broke the GOP’s back in ‘06 in combination with the 6th year fatigue common to any 2-term president.
Historians will compare him, not Newt, to Tipp O’Neill.
IMHO, DeLay's strategy of getting the K Street lobbyists pay the lion's share of their allegiance to the GOP led to the corruption and the explosion of earmarks, not to mention the loss of Congress.
DeLay wound up being compromised. He should have stuck with no compromise of first principles and limited government.
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