Tom DeLay, author, is a lot like Tom DeLay, congressman: Straightforward. Unflinching. A man who can take the heat – and dish out a few degrees of it, too.
With today’s release of his memoir, No Retreat, No Surrender: One American’s Fight, the former House majority leader details for the first time why he walked away last year from his more than 20-year congressional career. In doing so, DeLay spends a good deal of time facing his critics head-on – hardly surprising, considering “The Hammer” was hung on him as a nickname during his lawmaking days.
“I am not a man who apologizes for what he believes,” he writes. “This is because I did not create my beliefs, I received them: from the Bible; from great minds of the ages; from the experiences of nations; and from the principles of American freedom.
“Liberals may hate me for it, and weak-kneed Republicans may back away from it, but I cling to these ideas because I believe them to be true.”
CitizenLink dug deeper with DeLay on Monday about his beliefs – and how they came to be formed. We run through the political and policy revelations of that conversation today; we’ll explore the more personal side of his walk as a follower of Christ in part two of the interview, which we’ll publish Friday.
Before you even get into double digits in pages – it’s on page 3 – you make a pretty controversial statement. You say that today’s liberalism is a very early stage of what you describe as “communist thuggery.” What do you say to critics – and you know there are going to be critics – who respond, “Wow, this guy sounds paranoid?”
Well, first of all, “liberal” by its very definition – by those on the Left – is socialist. Communists are socialists, and communists, as part of their agenda, are thugs. And I have witnessed, personally as well as professionally, that if the Left cannot sell its ideas or its agenda or its vision, then the Left is going to go after people personally.
And not just try to defeat them politically; it’s not even good enough to vilify them publicly. They carpet-bomb your life, and decide to disgrace you, bankrupt you, send you to jail, all for political reasons. And to get rid of people who think differently than they do.
You lay out early in the book what you call your political manifesto. And you talk about some pretty radical things: term limits for judges and scrapping the direct election of senators. Why do you think those kinds of reforms are necessary?
Well, I think those reforms get back to the early intent of our founding fathers – and that is a government of the people. If senators are elected by popular vote, and not by state legislatures, then they become politicians and not the statesmen they were designed to be. It was George Washington, I think, who said that the idea is for the saucer of the Senate to cool the hot coffee coming from the House. The Senate was designed to slow down the House, which was designed to reflect the politics of the day.
With judges, it’s become quite evident that having a lifetime appointment can create a person who doesn’t care about the Constitution, doesn’t care about our system of government and only cares about his own personal agenda. There’s no way to remove them. And therefore, there ought to be a mechanism by which they are removed.
When you arrived in the House in ’84, a member of the minority, you write that you didn’t come to Congress “to play the loyal opposition.” You came to see your ideas win. Do you think that spirit’s been lost in the GOP today?
No, it wasn’t lost by us. It remains to be seen if it’s lost by the new leadership in the new minority. Right now, I think, Republicans in the House and the Senate are evaluating how they proceed in the future, and hopefully they will not accept their minority status, because, obviously, if you’re in the minority you cannot drive your agenda or accomplish the things you want to accomplish.
One of the most shocking nuggets you reveal about your time in Congress is that the Clintons, when Bill Clinton was president, actually weighed having all military uniforms banned from the White House grounds.
The Left has a disdain for the military – you saw it over the weekend with all the Iraqi war protests. That disdain was reflected in the way (the Clintons) treated people in uniform in the White House and elsewhere.
Why didn’t that get reported?
Well, the media is not on the side of the military, either.
You also have some criticism for Dick Armey, your colleague of many years. You say that he was blinded by ambition. Lately, Mr. Armey has been taking shots at conservative evangelicals like Dr. Dobson for being too inflexible on social issues. Did you see that coming?
Dick Armey was never comfortable with the social issues. He was never comfortable with those issues of abortion and marriage and things that were important to the Right. And because of him being uncomfortable, when Dr. Dobson would show up – as he is so inclined to do – and demand that we do more, Dick Armey didn’t appreciate it.
You have an entire chapter titled, “Ten Liberal Lies You’ve Heard About Me.” Among those lies are long-resolved ethics charges that proved groundless, and some criminal charges that are still pending. Some people think you’ve been found guilty of these allegations – but you haven’t even had your day in court. Do you think you ever will?
This is a 12-year process of demonizing that I have gone through. It was announced by the Democrats way early that they were going to do this. I’ve had several ethics charges filed against me over the years; all have been dismissed. I’ve had a RICO charge filed against me; it’s been dismissed. I have not been found guilty of doing anything wrong. Everything that has been brought against me has been frivolous and untrue.
The only thing lingering right now are these indictments on laws that don’t exist …
… from Travis County (Texas) D.A. Ronnie Earle, who has a history of indicting people and then never bringing the cases to trial. He’s charged you with some sort of money-laundering.
Right. And we’re trying to get to trial, but he knows that if he goes to trial he will be embarrassed. So he’s dragging it out as long as he can.
Most lawyers would advise their clients not to talk in any detail at all – let alone the depth of detail you include in this book – about pending charges. Did you have to ignore some legal advice to write this book?
Yes I did. My lawyers took that typical lawyer approach, and I rejected it. This is the criminalization of politics; this is that old, tired phrase “the politics of personal destruction.” And I feel very strongly that I have to fight it. And I have to fight it with everything available to me.
No retreat, no surrender.
Exactly.
