p.m. carpenter's commentary

An Open Letter to the Honorable Tom DeLay

Dear Tom:

Now that even the Social Darwinists on the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board have hung you out to dry, I’m warming up to you. Anyone the WSJ doesn’t like, I am compelled to reevaluate. It’s one of those “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” things, but I don’t need to explain hardball and strange bedfellows to you, of all people.

There are, however, deeper reasons underlying my hope for your salvageable hide. First of all, with Newt out huckstering books, with W. impaled by his own party’s 22nd Amendment, and with the Senate’s Doctor Bill back on his medication, whom would we on the left have left to so enjoyably skewer?

No, I need you, we all need you, Tom. We need your blue-ribbon hypocrisy, your cynical snarl, your attack-dog whimsy and perfectly coifed hair -- which, sadly, should you land in the Big House would likely get mussed as you’re being savagely gang-raped by white supremacist, Neo-Nazi fans of yours. Boys will be boys.

And there’s the obvious reason to support your continued presence: Texas and the other 49 states’ constituencies of the fundamentalist boobeoisie deserve a voice like yours in the United States House of Representatives. It may be only one of 435, but it’s a rock-solid paradigm of opportunism for future students of sleaze to study.

Last, and of more urgency, I’m hoping this letter of support will prompt you to throw some advertising money my way. I have reserved space on this page for your reelection campaign or third-party endorsements. We know you, Tom, and we know that one call from you and the Scaife Foundations would be showering me with more cash than the FDIC could insure. They’ll never miss it, and you and George could add one more statistic to your “ownership-society” count. It is, as they say, a win-win proposition, Tom.

With thanks for your thanks, I am,


Yours,
P.M.

posted by P.M. Carpenter @ 9:57 AM