Using the word 'principled' in the same breath as 'Tom DeLay.............

As if.

Yeah. Ultra-partisan activities like forcing voter precinct re-districting that blatantly favor your party is to be commended. That's how our democracy avoids falling under the power of tyrants (as DeLay put it). If only the Democrats would abuse power so resourcefully instead of acting with some modicum of integrity.

DeLay knows -- like the people gathered here know -- that you don't do it by caving into the opposition or trying to be more like it. What you do is, you make the case that your way is a better way, and then you stand up and fight for yourself when anybody dares to say different.

Sentence 1 is right. Sentence 2 is a lot iffier. DeLay didn't "make a case," he used threats and intimidation -- particularly against legislators and lobbyists on his own side, in order to keep them in line. I don't think he cared whether he had "made the case" to them or not.

He also demonized opponents. Let's be clear that "stand up and fight for yourself" has to mean trashing and ridiculing the other side and, as much as possible, putting them on the defensive by misrepresenting -- or, if need be, flatly lying about -- what their positions are. If Tim means to suggest that Democrats should do that too, then I agree with him. If by "stand up and fight for yourself" he's imagining that you can win politically in the post-DeLay, post-Rove world on the basis of positive messages and the attractiveness of your own well-articulated principles, then he's wrong.

...isn't a statesman, he's a crook.

My question is why doesn't the sentiment of this apply to gays and our equality movement (aka the marriage movement)? I seem to recall gays being beat up pretty bad in the '04 election cycle by many Dems, moderates and heterosexual liberals. The pages here at Salon were no exception...until it became clear that, oops, it wasn't so much that people were voting their "values." But the message in the runup to election day and right after to gays was "too much, too fast."

I love the sentiment expressed here. It's just that I don't see it being taken to heart even by many of the people who express it.

I'm in my 40's, and I NEVER recall the republicans being a "Docile Minority". They screamed and yelled and whined and complained every day of their minority status. They were never docile. And the democrats treated them with a heck of a lot more respect than the current crowd of republicans treat the democrats. I don't recall them being cut out of compromise meetings, or sworn at on the floor of Congress. The Dems didn't repeatedly hold voting sessions open for 45 minutes to try to sway votes. In fact, when the Dems held a vote open for just a few minutes, the "docile" republicans acted as if it was the end of the free world. Please don't pretend that DeLay has any credibility. He is a liar and a cheat who doesn't give a damn about the welfare of this nation, but only for the health and prosperity of his campaign donors.

What we do not need to make our progressive case is more of this kind of bs coming from outlets like Salon.

Your ability to put aside the incredibly dishonest partisanship of DeLay and treat him as some sort of creative statemen is disgusting. Talk about docile . . . yikes!

Taking DeLays words out of the context of his many years of cheating, lying and stacking the deck does not inform or enlighten. Tom Delay is not thoughtful and considered . . . do not let him frame the debate.

No need to sink to a level of discourse some find disrespectful to the community as a whole.

The writer's point was that within a very explicit context, he observed "the themes" of what Delay had said in his farewell address were a lot like "the ones we're hearing here (at YearlyKos)." Don't overlook that the writer conditioned his statement quite specifically: " . . . if you take out the policy particulars and the allegations of criminal wrongdoing and wipe out everything you know about Tom Delay, who he is and what he's done . . . ."

In my opinion, contrary to some nasty commentary herein, the general point was to step back, be objective and observe. Maybe you will learn something from the most unusual of sources?

One need not BE the enemy to know well enough not to emulate him.

While it's admirable to try and find a "take away" from the whole sordid DeLay era, I can't help but feel that the conclusion is wrong... and dangerous. DeLay wasn't the least bit interested in "taking stands" or principle -- DeLay was concerned with nothing less than power: gathering it for himself and the GOP, and stripping it from the Democrats. We would do well to examine it as a case history in how *not* to do politics.

Don't fall into the trap of admiring modern Republicanism and its inflexibility. That philosophy has gotten this country into the current multifaceted mess it's in, overseas and domestic. Compromise and diplomacy are not the dirty words they'd have us believe; they are the bedrock of democracy and freedom.

In the coming years, when GOP power is finally pared back, there is certain to be an effort to revise history and paint the DeLay era whistfully. But let's not whitewash the reality that this period of time will go down as one of this country's darkest and lowest points... and thank God that time is coming to an end.

Tom Delay is wrong about compromise, but he cannot understand why. The "why" is that no one point of view is always right and all points of view need oversight. When you don't have oversight, you have Chernoble [sp?]. Progressives aren't always right and conservatives aren't always wrong. When they share power equally, each side must compromise and the compromise will be based on a discussion of what is best for everyone over all, and not what is best for one point of view's perpetuation.