Tom DeLay: Reid And Pelosi Are ‘Very, Very Close To Treason’

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/24/delay-treason/

Tom DeLay: Reid And Pelosi Are ‘Very, Very Close To Treason’

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board yesterday, former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) accused Senate Majoirty Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of “getting very, very close to treason” by opposing the war in Iraq. When a member of the editorial board noted that treason is a “pretty serious charge,” DeLay shot back, “And I’m serious about it.” He added that he had looked up the definition on his way to the interview, and it meant “the betrayal of trust.” Watch it at link~

DeLay specifically attacks Reid, saying that “in the time of war, with soldiers dying on the ground, announcing that we had lost the war, is very close to treasonous.” Here’s DeLay in 1999, saying that the U.S. campaign in Kosovo cannot win:

“ stronger in Kosovo now than he was before the bombing. … The Serbian people are rallying around him like never before. He’s much stronger with his allies, Russians and others.” Clinton “has no plan for the end” and “recognizes that Milosevic will still be in power,” added DeLay. “The bombing was a mistake. … And this president ought to show some leadership and admit it, and come to some sort of negotiated end.”

Of course, none of this should come as a surprise. DeLay, who is currently under criminal indictment for money laundering and criminal conspiracy, has a long history of attacking the patriotism of progressives.

Transcript

DELAY: I think Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are getting very, very close to treason.

INTERVIEWER: Treason. Now that’s a pretty serious charge.

DELAY: And I’m serious about it. For the Majority Leader of the United States Senate in the time of war, with soldiers dying on the ground, announcing that we had lost the war, is very close to treasonous.

I looked it up while we were driving over here, what the definition of treason is. It’s the betrayal of trust. I have never in my adult life, nor in my understanding of history, seen something so blatantly outrageous for political reasons.

[Dora]

1. If you think Tom DeLay is projecting, please raise your hand:

:hi:

[marmar]

2. Why would any newspaper give this sow a forum?

His opinion is worth less than a $10 bill in Monopoly money. :argh:

[Ruzicka Nemchinov]

33. Have you ever read the Trib?

Because if you had you would know the paper is pure conservative garbage that idolizes people like DeLay and Chimpy.

Richard Mellon Scaife started this paper in 1992 to compete with the centrist Post-Gazette, what does that tell you.

www.tribunereview.com

Go there and read there editorials and you'll know what i'm talking about when I say "Conservative Garbage"

[marmar]

37. I will....thanks for the link....and welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Hawaii Hiker]

39. Pittsburgh Tribune Review is conservative rag

much like NY Post or Washington Times, all three are one-sided garbage papers..

As far as Tom Delay, he's nothing but a f-ing criminal & his credibility is absolute zero...

[sallyseven]

3. Betrayal of trust

that award belongs to bush.

[yellowcanine]

4. Tom DeLay is very, very close to insanity. And who cares what he thinks?

[bdamomma]

5. Tom Delay

what a waste of human life.

[Bake]

6. Tom Delay: Very very close to JAIL!

Bake

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. delay has blood on his hands, he helped march them into it in the first place.

[MessiahRp]

8. Quite ballsy for a soon to be convicted felon

I can't see a jury giving this big of an asshole ANY mercy.

Rp

[Virginia Dare]

9. When does Tommy's trial begin?

"I have never in my adult life, nor in my understanding of history, seen something so blatantly outrageous for political reasons".


:rofl:

[Deep13]

10. So now proposing legislation as a member of Congress is treason.

Betrayal of trust? Hmmmm.

Treason:
Waging war against the United States or any of them OR

Giving aid and comfort to their enemies.

"Comfort" does not mean giving moral support to the enemy by saying we screwed up when, in fact, we screwed up. It means harboring enemy soldiers in your house and feeding them. It means running guns to them. It means spying for them.

Side note: When is one allowed to yell 'fire' in a crowded theater? Answer: when the theater is on fire.

[shain from kane]

11. Bring it on. Broaden the debate, you idiot.

[flakey_foont]

12. wanker!

when does this dirty ol' egg sucking dog go to jail anyway?

[w4rma]

13. Bush is King. It's treasonous to oppose him.

:sarcasm:

[TwilightGardener]

14. Indicted Sack-of-Shit Political Has-Been Charges Treason...

Reid and Pelosi must be shaking in their shoes.

[Buzz Clik]

15. The neocons call all their opponents traitors. "Treason" used to mean something. No longer.

[bunkerbuster1]

16. Seriously, does anyone care what Delay thinks?

I know he still gets invited to the Sunday morning bobblehead shows, although I have no idea why.

[EarlG]

17. Tom DeLay, traitor by his own definition

He's changed his tune from when troops were on the ground in the former Yugoslavia...

"Mr. Speaker, this is a very difficult speech for me to give, because I normally, and I still do, support our military and the fine work that they are doing. But I cannot support a failed foreign policy. ... But before we get deeper embroiled into this Balkan quagmire, I think that an assessment has to be made of the Kosovo policy so far. President Clinton has never explained to the American people why he was involving the U.S. military in a civil war in a sovereign nation, other than to say it is for humanitarian reasons, a new military/foreign policy precedent. ... Was it worth it to stay in Vietnam to save face? What good has been accomplished so far? Absolutely nothing." -- Congressional Record, "Removal of United States Armed Forces from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," 4/28/99

The deployment of U.S. military forces in Kosovo is "just another bad idea in a foreign policy without a focus." -- Editorial, Saint Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota), 3/17/99

"America needs to quickly change directions and leave behind this chilling comedy of errors that has defined our foreign policy." -- Copley News Service, 3/22/99

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:yxx67FHvJqsJ:www.democrats.org/pdfs/gop_kosovo.pdf+%22tom+delay%22+%22this+Balkan+quagmire%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Number of U.S. troop deaths in Kosovo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War#Military_casualties_and_losses">two.
Number of U.S. troop deaths in Iraq: http://icasualties.org/oif/">3,332, with no end in sight.

[Hippo_Tron]

34. See, the problem is that you don't speak RepublikSpeak

Inherent in DeLay's statement is that it's only treason when Democrats do it.

[blitzen]

18. Tom Delay is very, very, very close to being a Fascist! n/t

[ET Awful]

19. Hey Tom, you putz, read the freakin' Constitution n/t

[TayTay]

20. Tom Delay on 9/13/94 on Clinton and war

You can't make this stuff up. This is Mr. Delay and on a prior military action and on how to honor a President. You could, as they say, look this up in the Congressional Record. (That is where this came from, by the way, the official Journal of Congress.)

NO ONE AGREES WITH CLINTON ON HAITI (House of Representatives - September 13, 1994)


(Mr. DeLAY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday's Washington Post summed up the doubts of the Nation about the President's policy on Haiti.

It said:

As President Clinton presses ahead with plans to invade Haiti, it is not clear that such action is in the U.S. national interest or that Clinton can overcome potentially strong opposition from Congress and the U.S. public opinion foreign policy experts say ***

The Post went on:

The experts say that if Clinton flinches from his unequivocal, public threats to use force, he would be regarded as a laughing- stock in foreign ministries around the world. His only hope of avoiding such humiliation, without invading, would be if Haiti's military rulers heed U.S. calls to surrender power and leave the Caribbean island republic.

How many times have we heard this plea that America must swallow a bad policy in order to salvage this President?

Somewhere this administration has gotten it backward. It is the President's job to serve the people, not the people's job to serve the President.

America's foreign policy should be about protecting America's interests, not protecting the President from being a laughingstock, or being humiliated as the Washington Post said.

Mr. Speaker, we need a vote on Haiti. We need to let the American people speak through their representatives.

[demosincebirth]

21. It really gets me how these criminals can get off and talk about treason.

[MissMarple]

22. Will someone please place some duct tape on his mouth?

The man has nothing constructive or even truthful to say, and he just keeps burbling on.

[Lobster Martini]

23. He had to look up the definition of the word "treason" on his way to an interview?

The guy's about 60 years old, he's been a Congressman for over 20 years, his shoes are on the correct feet, he doesn't drool noticeably, and while driving to an interview he suddenly decides to look up the up the definitition of the word treason, having never known the meaning of the word before? That sounds plausible.

[CBHagman]

24. And DeLay compared his indictment to the Holocaust.

:eyes:

And his little lecture on doing things for political reasons is, if I may put it gently, akin to a pornographer lecturing the nation on avoiding lustful thoughts.

[Union Thug]

25. Oh piss off, Delay. Aren't you supposed to be in prison or something? n/t

[CoffeeCat]

26. Tom DeLay is to politics...

...what the Starland Vocal Band is to pop music.

His time is up, no one cares and most are embarrassed that
they listened to him EVER.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

51. SVC could sing harmony in tune. No way Delay can touch them.

Delay is an indicted shitstain. Although the status crime of being a shit stain is not in the Texas Penal Code, dammit.

[MurrayDelph]

27. No, he's right.

Let's look at the line of succession:

"President" George Bush -- treason
"Vice-President" Dick Cheney -- treason

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

So, she is only traitors away from the Oval Office. That's close, isn't it?

[Name removed]

28. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TwilightGardener]

32. You do realize you're "Democratic Underground", right?

[eleny]

29. "Delay - Your words are good to poop on!"

[HuffleClaw]

30. and here i thought cheney was the real court jester

this one is pretty over the top

[Peace Patriot]

31. It's the "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board" we should be lambasting--

for giving this lying, thieving, traitorous Bushite felon a forum!

Delay is the architect of the "Help America Vote for Bush Act" of 2002--electronic voting, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls--among other fascist plots that he engineered.

Talk about treason.

And where was he, when his compadre Rove was calling up Robert Novak (--two more traitors in this disreputable junta) to out a CIA agent and the entire WMD counterproliferation network that she headed--putting all of their lives in danger, and disabling one of our most important national security--and world security--capabilities?

Oh, he was off trying to gerrymander Texas!

But to my main point: What is the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review DOING giving a forum to this rotter? THAT is the crucial question that we must ask. What are THEIR war profiteer connections? What financial stake do THEY have in this fascist coup?

-----

Some research...

-----

"The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Greensburg Tribune-Review and affiliated dailies claim a Sunday circulation of 221,000 readers. They are published by the Tribune Review Publishing Company, which was purchased by **RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE** in 1970. The newspaper is generally considered to have a conservative and libertarian opinion page.... " (**EMPHASIS ADDED)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_Tribune-Review

-----

Richard Mellon Scaife is one of the most scabrous, foaming-at-the-mouth billionaire fascists in the country. He was the lead funder of the "witch-hunting" jihad against Bill and Hillary Clinton. Union-buster. (The PTR is rival to the union newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette). Founder of NewsMax (major rightwing disinformation site). $350 million in 2002 to major fascist organizations, including...

the Hoover Institution
the Heritage Foundation, and

* American Enterprise Institute
* Center for the Study of Popular Culture (headed by David Horowitz) (my note: insane winger)
* Federalist Society (my note:--used by Rove as litmus test for purging US Attorneys and installing Bush Cartel toadies)
* GOPAC (headed by Newt Gingrich)
* Pacific Legal Foundation (my note: very, very bad, anti-democratic, pro-corporate lawyers)
* Reason Foundation

Also, "Scaife endowed a new school of public policy at Pepperdine University. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr was named the first dean of this school...."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mellon_Scaife

------

I guess that makes it clearer why the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review would be giving a forum to Tom Delay.

[Cameron27]

35. Tom Delay is very very close to

slander, or is it libel? In fact I think he should be sued.

[Eurobabe]

36. Tom DeLay: Under the Influence of Malathion

[MasonJar]

38. And, Tom, I sure hope you are very,very close to prison.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

40. But you note that he doesn't actually accuse them of treason...

If he said "they're committing treason", that would be a falsifiable claim, and people could prove he was wrong, and/or sue him.

The fact that he doesn't have the courage to put his money where his mouth is, and accuse Pelosi and Reid of treason, strongly suggests that he doesn't actually think they're committing it.

[KBlagburn]

41. Just sent the following to Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editor

I would like to respond to the interview that Tom Delay gave to your
organization.

In the interest of fairness and decency, I felt I should send you these
quote's from notable republicans, including Delay. They were made during the
war in Kosovo towards the Commander in Chief. A war I might remind you, that
saw NO American combat deaths.






" President . . . is once again releasing American military might on a
foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has
yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not
informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from
home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." ---Sen. Rick
Santorum (R-PA)

"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the
administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign
policy." ---Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX)

"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a
clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy." ---Karen Hughes,
speaking on behalf of George W. Bush

"I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning . . . I didn't
think we had done enough in the diplomatic area." ---Senator Trent Lott
(R-MS)

"Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going
to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years." ---Joe Scarborough (R-FL)

"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is
often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning
that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague
objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions
are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is
no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no
contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There
is no agenda to bolster our over-extended military. There is no explanation
defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic
plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no
plan today"
-Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX)

"Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come
home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their
life?" ---Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/6/99

"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to
explain to us what the exit strategy is."
-Governor George W. Bush (R-TX)

[TankLV]

42. And why do we care what a pending LYING CRIMINAL has to say about anything?

maybe we can replay some of his statements during CLINTON's Presidency...

I'm sure we'd discover he's a typical repuke HYPOCRIT, too...

And, of course, LYING US into an ILLEGAL WAR OF CHOICE BASED ON LIES gets a pass...

[Slyder]

43. No penalties for impugning honor

The only way to return to a civil dialog in politics is to bring back dueling. Of course, this is meant in jest. We would have no politicans or lawyers left! But generally speaking when you look at the dueling records of Democrats Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, and Sen. Thomas Hart Benton, we can assume that the Democrats are the better shots!

[Jack Sprat]

44. Probably daily distraction from the real world

and the investigations of the Justice Dept and the death and carnage in Iraq. Clowns like Delay put on their clown suit and distract the public from the BushCo crimes. The American media do the same job as Delay during their daily broadcasts.

[Blue_In_AK]

45. And Tom DeLay's a criminal...

Now what?

[gulliver]

46. God, I wish DeLay would endorse one of the GOP candidates.

Or all of them.

I'm sure they are lining up at DeLay's door begging for him to withhold his endorsement.

[mark414]

47. why does anybody even give this guy a soapbox anymore?

someone who resigned in disgrace but he stills gets invited around for interviews and appearances...what gives?

[UrbScotty]

48. Look who's talking. (nt)

[zulchzulu]

49. DeLay has been a treasonous little bastard for years...

Why is this criminal allowed out of his cage?

[ShortnFiery]

50. What?

Who the f*ck is Tom Delay? :rofl:

[ClayZ]

52. Pelosi is very close to being the President.

Impeach Cheney and bu$h!