His Ethics Are His Best Quality

Here's Tom DeLay in an interview with the Moonie Times:

I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them.

1. So, the reason the judiciary imposed an "unconstitutional" separation of church and state is because Congress didn't stop them (the courts)...

2. And the reason we have judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them...

3. And the reason we have a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them...

Let's examine these statements from the House Majority Leader about the Constitution and our civil liberties for just a moment, beginning with the most stupid of them.

2. Judicial Review. I'm pretty sure the principle of judicial review has been around since, oh, I don't know, the Jefferson Administration.

1. Separation of Church and State. The Majority Leader doesn't believe in the principle of the Separation of Church and State. Which means he believes that Church and State should be united. Which means he believes that the State, through the Church, or a Church, can impose itself and its doctrines on the rest of us, seemingly without regard for the rights enumerated to us in the Bill of Rights. Which means he doesn't believe in democracy or any of the principles given to us by the founding generation.

Paging Howard Dean and Harry Reid. You're wanted on deck. I trust I'll find your responses in my morning newspapers.

3. Tom DeLay hates the right to privacy. Tom DeLay is against the right to privacy, for individuals to have the right to their persons and the liberty to conduct themselves within the confines of their homes and bodies as they see fit provided they don't interfere with the rights of others. Tom DeLay and the Party he heads are against this. Yes. He. Actually. Said. That.

Memo to any prospectives 2008 Democratic candidates: You should emphatically and unapologetically state your support for the right to privacy, the separation of church and state, and reaffirm the two centuries long principle of judicial review in your declaration of candidacy. You can get a lot of the other stuff wrong, but these are the essential items you need to get right. I know it all sounds pretty basic, but that's what things have come to in the year 2005.

If there's one thing you can't say about today's Republican Party, that is that they haven't shown us. They have shown us. They are telegraphing in perfectly clear language where they want to take the country, if only the "courts" weren't in there way.

How will we respond?