Posted 3:39 PM by Scoobie Davis

DeLay Smiled During Booking Because He Felt “Peace and The Joy”
I heard and recorded the last part of Tom DeLay’s interview on Sean Hannity’s radio program. DeLay, who was behind the star chamber-like “evidence room” prior to the Clinton impeachment vote--referred to his indictment as part of the Democratic leadership's strategy of “the politics of personal destruction.”

Here are a few more howlers:

Prior to my recording the interview, I heard DeLay use the Fox News talking points phrase “criminalization of politics.”

I laughed when I heard Hannity’s suck-up to DeLay. This isn’t the first time he's done that with a GOP politician (I reported in 2002 when Hannity provided cover for Trent Lott’s racist past).
HANNITY: How long, congressman, do you think this is going to take for you to be able to clear your good name here?
DELAY: I don’t know.
HANNITY: Did the lawyers give you any sense of that?
DELAY: They sort of think that if things go well—I’ve asked for a speedy trial—that’s one of the motions we’ve done and if things go like they should be and we get a fair judge, we ought to be at least in trial by December but these charges are so outrageous and so over-the-top that I feel pretty confident that a fair judge will throw them out

I wonder who are the “good Democrats” DeLay was referring to here: Zell Miller, Tammy Bruce, Dick Morris, Pat Caddell or one of the other Fox News Democrats? DeLay once again, without proof, blames the “Democrat leadership” in his troubles:
HANNITY: . . .I have never in my life—and I mean this sincerely—seen a case of such abuse in my life and I wish you well in this because it is transparently political here and I hope even our Democratic friends see this for what it is.
DELAY: Well, many of them do quite frankly and good Democrats that [sic] honestly believe in what they’re trying to do have come up to me and expressed sympathy for what’s going on and they don’t like what’s happening [CROSSTALK] but the Democrat [sic] leadership is driving this; we all know that.

DeLay talks about his grinning booking photo:
HANNITY:. .We were just down in Houston, by the way. We had a great time. We wished you could have joined us and maybe the next time I’m down there--
DELAY: Well, you could have watched me get booked.
HANNITY: [LAUGHS] All right. One last question: you definitively went in with a strategy to smile. That wasn’t by accident, was it?
DELAY: That was not by accident. [HANNITY LAUGHS] I’m not going to let them see any—but I gotta tell you: that picture reflects the peace and the joy that I feel right now. I’m not down about this. I really feel good about what I believe in and I know that I’ve done nothing wrong and I’m not going to let them get me down.