Tom Delay...ewww

[hetron]

I don't know if Tom Delay is guilty of all the offenses he was charged with (funneling laundered cash into Republican campaigns). He is guilty of running a Tammany Hall type of operation on Capitol Hill, where he would only meet with lobbyists who were Republicans and were willing to pay in cash. He is also guilty of making incredibly moronic statements: the EPA is the "gestapo of government", that the clean air act should be repealed because "it's never been proven that air toxins are hazardous to people"; who insists that judges on the other side of issues "need to be intimidated"; and who claims that there are no parents trying to raise families on minimum wage since "those families do not exist".

Interestingly enough, from what I have read, Delay was kicked out of the premed program at baylor because of drinking related offenses. He then became an extermitor before moving on to politics. Supposedly in his early days in the Texas Legislature he was known as a big time partyer and carouser ("The Hammer" used to be "Hot tub Tommy") before finding Jesus when he was elected to congress in 1984 (this story sound familiar to anyone)?

All the info is from the Oct 10, 2005 edition of newsweek and have been crossreferenced with some other websites.

Wow! How did such an extremist ever get into such a position of power?