Tom DeLay: Expert on Corruption?

Steve Clemons of The Washington Note offers a tongue-in-cheek suggestion concerning Tom DeLay:

America has no good texts today on the realities of how American politics work. Clearly, Tom DeLay and his party have taken us in a direction that feels and smells more corrupt than ten years ago. Enron is part of this era. The secret energy policy meetings with Cheney are as well. Political donations for access. Boeing and the air tanker scandal.

But we act today like American politics is still operating in a purist way. It's kind of like free trade, University of Chicago-trained economists who beat the table in free trade vs. protectionism debates but fail to recognize that South Korea dominates the global DRAM and flat planel industries today because of policies antithetical to Chicago School neoliberalism.

To understand "how a bill becomes a law," like the old School House Rock jingle put it, one must better understand lobbyists, money, and the realities of a more structurally corrupt political system.

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DeLay, as part of any rehabilitation plan or any attempt to apologize for his sins to the American public, should write a book...

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That way, Americans and those who are trying to get their head around the context of reform have a clear picture of how ugly and distorted our political system has become.

There would be no one better than Tom DeLay to give this insider's view of America's structurally corrupt political order today.

Not a bad suggestion actually. If only Tom DeLay would show a little less arrogance....