X Files meets Punchinello

Tom DeLay stole the show on Thursday during the challenge to Ohio's electors. He made his curtain call, introduced by "coach" Denny, and sang a paen of outrage. I was moved as I watched him gesticulate on CSPAN streaming video on my office computer. Never has a Republiclown looked and sounded more ridiculous.

Tom DeLay doesn't get it.

They accuse the president — who, we are told, is apparently a closet computer nerd — of personally overseeing the development of vote-stealing software.

This is probably the least salient point -- if it can be indirectly deduced at all -- from the Conyers report. I just searched the PDF for "nerd" and it came back: 0 matches. So, Honorable Mr. DeLay, didn't you have time to read the report? It was dated January 5, 2005: yesterday. It was only 102 pages!

"Closet computer nerd?"

Many observers will discard today’s petition as a partisan waste of time, but it is much worse.

It is an assault against the institutions of our representative democracy; it is a threat to the very ideals it ostensibly defends.

Tom DeLay, this sounds like a claim of extra-legal actions on the part of the challengers, when, in fact they followed the letter of the law. Where's the threat to ideals: rigorous honesty, accountability, equal rights?

The Democrat Party was once an idealistic, forward-looking policy colossus.

The New Deal, the Marshall Plan, the Great Society, the space program, civil rights … And yet, today, one is hard-pressed to find a single positive, substantive idea on the left.

Instead, the Democrats have replaced statecraft with stagecraft, substance with style, and not a very fashionable style at that.

Well, as majority leader, Tom is going to be putting forth more colossal Democratic policies, just not about voting rights, this year.

The petitioners claim they act on behalf of disenfranchised voters, but no such voter disenfranchisement occurred in the election of 2004 or for that matter, the election of 2000.

Everybody knows it. The voters know it. The candidates know it. The courts know it. The evidence proves it.

This is the coda to Tom DeLay's Vesti la Giubba of January 06, 2004. Not only is history written and erased and then rewritten with a sweep of a sweaty palm, but it's okay with America because voting doesn't matter. And besides, there wasn't any disenfranchisement.

Yes, Mr. DeLay, this is serious. But you made me laugh, in spite of everything. No matter how grave the issue, I just can't take you seriously. You are the Prince of the Republi-Clowns!

Looking forward to your next schtick.