DeLay Brings Yet More Shame Upon Texas -- Those Shiftless Unemployed

By Manifesto Joe

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay embodies a chapter of Texas history that I wish could be forgotten. But, he keeps resurfacing in all sorts of repulsive ways, including his embarrassing turn on Dancing With the Stars. Then on Sunday, he goes on CNN's State of the Union and basically says that people are unemployed because they want to be.

Here's the Huffington Post report on this, including a brief transcript.

DeLay, while he was out and about making an ass of himself, also voiced admiration for senile Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning for tying up the Senate and screwing around hundreds of thousands of people, federal employees as well as the jobless, for days before finally backing down.

Mr. DeLay obviously needs to be enlightened about a few things. Let's just start with my own situation.

If I were to lose my job tomorrow, catastrophe would soon follow. Unemployment benefits generally run about $300 a week. That's not exactly an incentive to stay jobless. With the mortgage payments I've got to make, and the debt I have to service because of past illnesses in my family, and my own chronic health condition stemming from severe allergies, that wouldn't go far at all. Job loss for me, now, would likely mean bankruptcy, and probably having to sell my home for much less than it's worth.

Mr. DeLay also has obviously never known any common person who has endured a prolonged period of unemployment. I know a man who went through this ordeal, and he's a Type 1 insulin-dependent diabetic, too. He went through months of sleepless anxiety over his situation. And, ever since rebounding from this job loss, he's been scraping by on part-time jobs. He's never had money to retrain for something else -- not on the bare subsistence that unemployment benefits provide.

Leaving office in a cloud of scandal apparently wasn't enough to shame Mr. DeLay into private life. He seems to feel a compulsion to make a fool of himself again and again, years after his initial disgrace.

Texas has already had plenty of people, including one of the worst U.S. presidents ever, to make us look bad. Put a sock in it, Mr. DeLay.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.