Coming Friday: Rush Interviews Tom DeLay

RUSH: Tom DeLay has a new book coming out. It’s called, “No Retreat, No Surrender: One American’s Fight.” We will be talking to Tom DeLay tomorrow at this time, 24 hours from now. We’ll be talking to Tom DeLay here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. The Washington Post has Robert Novak’s column entitled: ‘The Wrath of Tom DeLay.’ There’s some interesting tidbits from DeLay’s book. I guess DeLay feels a little liberated here because he fires both barrels at Dick Armey and at Newt Gingrich. He’s probably even more critical of Armey. He also assails President Bush as being ‘more compassionate than conservative.’ Even has a couple of words for Denny Hastert, who he accuses, along with Gingrich and Armey, of opening the door to the Democratic purge of Tom DeLay. Now, we’ll ask him about this tomorrow, but Novak says, “DeLay is an angry man after being driven from the leadership, from Congress and, so far, from public life by ‘a concerted effort to destroy me legally, financially and personally’ through a 2005 indictment in Texas.”

Novak says, “DeLay’s response to Democratic District Attorney Ronnie Earle is familiar. What is unusual are his claims that ‘pre-existing tensions I had with Gingrich and Armey’ partially explain their role in kicking DeLay out of the leadership. DeLay admits that the Republican leaders empowered by the 1994 elections — comprising himself as majority whip, Gingrich as speaker and Armey as majority leader – ‘were not a cohesive team, and this hindered our ability to change the nation.’ He puts most blame ‘at Newt Gingrich’s door.’ In describing Gingrich as an ‘ineffective Speaker,’ DeLay writes: ‘He knew nothing about running meetings and nothing about driving an agenda.’ He adds: ‘Nearly every other day he had a new agenda, a new direction he wanted us to take. It was impossible to follow him.’

‘DeLay also declares that ‘our leadership was in no moral shape to press’ for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Writing well before Gingrich’s admission for the first time last week, DeLay asserts: ‘It is now public knowledge that Newt Gingrich was having an affair with a staffer during the entire impeachment crisis. Clearly, men with such secrets are not likely to sound a high moral tone at a moment of national crisis.’ DeLay refers to Armey as ‘so blinded by ambition as to be useless to the cause’ and a ‘poor leader’ who had ‘few fresh ideas.’ He adds that Armey ‘resented anyone he thought might get in the way of his becoming speaker of the House. Beware the man drunk with ambition.’ He pleads innocence in his version of the failed 1997 coup attempt against Gingrich and accuses Armey, after realizing that he would not succeed Gingrich, of telling the speaker that DeLay was plotting against him: ‘He had lied to cover his ambitions, betraying both his movement and his fellow leaders.’ … His revelation that GOP leaders did not constitute a band of brothers helps explain why 12 years of control produced much less than was anticipated.”

That’s how Novak concludes his column. So we’ll be talking to Tom DeLay tomorrow about this and get even more fodder for you about this.