I now know that it is indeed possible to die laughing, because last week I damn near lost control of the car as I doubled up with laughter at hearing Tom DeLay on NPR bemoan the terrible, terrible strong-arm tactics of the “Democrat” Party’s leadership.
Tom was less outraged than saddened, deeply saddened, at even the thought of party overlords pressuring their congressional rank and file, in this case on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Some of these poor victims had wanted to vote aye on Cafta, sobbed Tom, but the cruel masters high atop the House Democratic caucus wouldn’t let them vote their conscience. He was despondent; I feared he might harm himself.
For DeLay, of course, the Cafta vote was merely another opportunity to strafe the opposition, not to bespeak a bill’s merits - and it was as well one of those hysterically laughable moments in classic hypocrisy that makes one wonder about the soundness of democracy itself.
But what can you expect from a man who once taught a Bible study class using not the recorded wisdom of Christ, but the writings of Watergate-felon Charles Colson?
In itself and apart from all the hype, Cafta was of relatively minor importance to the trading parties involved. Roughly four-fifths of the goods from the Central American exporters in question are already tariff-free, and reciprocal U.S. exports are equivalent in volume to New Jersey’s international trade. This is hardly the stuff that international prosperity is made of.
But it is the stuff that disgraceful, over-the-top political tactics are made of, and that’s where modern Republican pols - from Richard Nixon to Tom DeLay - really shine.
I think journalist Bob Woodward, in recently surveying the essence of the Nixon administration, indirectly synopsized not just Republican rule then, but the coming 30 years of its modus operandi. Speaking of the secret White House tapes, he said it was striking that here was a group of men who held vast powers in achieving some actual good for tens of millions of people, but all they ever talked about was, “How can we screw somebody?”
For Nixon and his henchmen like Chuck Colson - Tom DeLay’s spiritual mentor and political idol - the art of governing was merely about the thrill of the hunt and the agony of the killed. The chance to accomplish authentic good never crossed their minds. Politics was, rather, a cold game in which body counts mattered above all. Screw ‘em, stick it to ‘em, shaft ‘em - these were their cherished political values.
Yet by comparison Nixon and his cohorts now look almost mild in their putrefaction. Those boys were interested principally in screwing perceived enemies largely confined to the inner sanctums of the Beltway. A total war of scorched earth was unimagined only because “we the people” weren’t the primary target - and in retrospect “the system” was relatively safe, given that a healthy congressional opposition and robust press were in place to restrain Nixon & Co.’s paranoia and ambition.
Today, however, it is indeed the broad system of American government - not just enemy partisans - that is under fire by the likes of DeLay. To him and millions of likeminded followers the system is quite literally unGodly - and because the Big Guy upstairs is on their side, any political tactic is divinely justified in overturning it.
As DeLay said in a 1999 speech to the Christian Coalition - a speech so brazen even the Bush campaign told him to pipe down, lest people get the right idea - the “Absolute Truth … has been manipulated and destroyed” by … Satan? … no, by the “liberal worldview.”
So in the coming presidential election, he asked the chosen few in an Elmer Gantry delivery, “Will this country accept the worldviews of humanism, materialism, sexism, naturalism, postmodernism or any of the other -isms? Or will we march forward with a biblical worldview, a worldview that says God is our creator, that man is a sinner, and that we will save this country by changing the hearts and minds of Americans?”
Well, as Chuck Colson famously promised in his wholly political, pre-evangelical days, “When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” DeLay has simply upgraded the maxim to include a kind of political neo-evangelicalism.
DeLay also exhorted in that 1999 speech: “We have the House and the Senate. All we need is the presidency!”
But of course it didn’t stop there. Now they want the courts. It won’t stop there, either - and that’s not a laughing matter.