{"id":87,"date":"2005-10-24T20:53:32","date_gmt":"2005-10-25T02:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/loco\/dump-\r\n\r\nduhbya\/making-their-own-reality\/"},"modified":"2005-10-24T21:55:09","modified_gmt":"2005-10-25T03:55:09","slug":"making-their-own-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/making-their-own-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Their Own Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>A few conservative blogs take some delight in Democratic frustration at not <\/p>\n<p>having the usual mugshot of Tom &quot;The Hammer&quot; DeLay (&quot;I am the federal government&quot;). Must be nice for DeLay to have <\/p>\n<p>connections protecting him. <\/p>\n<p>Actually, I&#8217;ll take the picture of the grinning fool who thinks he can fake his way out of this. <\/p>\n<p>There are limits to &quot;making your own reality.&quot; DeLay is a certifiable scoundrel who deserves shunning, if not imprisonment. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"sig\">mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/academicelephant.redstate.org\/story\/2005\/10\/20\/171015\/19\">|| <\/p>\n<p>RedState.org<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>This is the best-looking mug shot I have ever seen. As such, it is an oddly compelling portrait of this oddly <\/p>\n<p>compelling man at this oddly compelling moment in his life. On CNN this morning, correspondant (sic) Sean Callebs said, &quot;[b]ut think <\/p>\n<p>about it, at some point later today, pictures of DeLay&#8217;s mug shot could be plastered all over the TV, plastered all over the Internet. <\/p>\n<p><em>Certainly something the GOP doesn&#8217;t want to see.<\/em>&quot;  Gosh, I&#8217;m not so sure.  Tom DeLay has never looked better.  He looks <\/p>\n<p>bright, personable, confident&#8211;<em><strong>certainly not guilty<\/strong><\/em>.  Who would have thunk a mug shot could turn out to be <\/p>\n<p><em>good propaganda<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2005\/10\/20\/AR2005102001962.html\">DeLay <\/p>\n<p>Smile May Foil Democrat Campaign Ads<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>DeLay, an 11-term Texas congressman and former pest exterminator famous for enforcing <\/p>\n<p>GOP loyalty, faced a tough reelection campaign even before the indictment. <\/p>\n<p>In the 2004 elections, DeLay won 55 percent of the <\/p>\n<p>vote, a relatively weak showing for a veteran House leader. <strong>His challenger next year is expected to be former Rep. Nick Lampson, <\/p>\n<p><em>who lost his seat in 2004 after he was forced to run in a new district under a redistricting plan pushed by DeLay<\/em>.<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>For his mandatory booking Thursday, which caused him to miss voting on a gun industry bill popular in his home state, <strong>DeLay <\/p>\n<p>did everything he could to prevent images of the event from being committed to film<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a \n\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/000317.htm\">mjh&#8217;s Blog: Counterpoint to Eulogies<\/a> by Tim Wise<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s why a bona fide <\/p>\n<p>moron like Tom Delay can brag about not having a passport (because, after all, why would anyone want to travel abroad and leave <\/p>\n<p>&#8221;Amur&#8217;ca,&#8221; even for a day) and not be seen as the epitome of a blithering idiot, and why he could probably be elected again and <\/p>\n<p>again in thousands of white dominated congressional districts in this country, and not merely in Texas.<\/p>\n<p><a \n\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.mjhinton.com\/blogs\/archives\/00000238.htm\">mjh&#8217;s Weblog Entry &#8211; 07\/29\/2003: &quot;Contempt for the public&quot;<\/a> by <\/p>\n<p>Paul Krugman<\/p>\n<p>Another answer may be that in modern America, style trumps substance. Here&#8217;s what Tom DeLay, the House majority <\/p>\n<p>leader, said in a speech last week: &quot;To gauge just how out of touch the Democrat leadership is on the war on terror, just close your <\/p>\n<p>eyes and try to imagine Ted Kennedy landing that Navy jet on the deck of that aircraft carrier.&quot; To say the obvious, that remark <\/p>\n<p>reveals a powerful contempt for the public: Mr. DeLay apparently believes that the nation will trust a man, independent of the facts, <\/p>\n<p>because he looks good dressed up as a pilot. But it&#8217;s possible that he&#8217;s right.<\/p>\n<p><a \n\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.mjhinton.com\/blogs\/archives\/00000148.htm\">mjh&#8217;s Weblog Entry &#8211; 05\/27\/2003: &quot;Tom Delay: &quot;I am the federal <\/p>\n<p>government.&quot;&quot;<\/a><\/p>\n<p> [Speaker of the House Tom] DeLay recently revealed how he felt about rules of general applicability. <\/p>\n<p>When he tried smoking a cigar in a restaurant on federal property, the manager told him it violated federal law. His response, according <\/p>\n<p>to The Washington Post, was, &quot;I am the federal government.&quot;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few conservative blogs take some delight in Democratic frustration at not having the usual mugshot of Tom &quot;The Hammer&quot; DeLay (&quot;I am the federal government&quot;). Must be nice for DeLay to have connections protecting him. Actually, I&#8217;ll take the picture of the grinning fool who thinks he can fake his way out of this. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/making-their-own-reality\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Making Their Own Reality<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}