News Flash: A Republican Has Blamed Tom DeLay For Something

Grab your socks and hose and pull, because this will blow them off if you don’t:

A Republican has actually blamed Tom DeLay for something.

Now that you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, applied smelling salts (if needed), taken a sip of water and wiped the sweat from your brow, here is the skinny.

Eric Thode, the former GOP County Chairman in Fort Bend County says that if Democrats win in CD-22 and lose control of the U.S. House, there is no one but Tom DeLay to blame:

In any other year, it might be a minor embarrassment. But Democrats are close enough to retaking the U.S. House that the 22nd Congressional District, where DeLay has withdrawn and left Republicans with no candidate on the ballot, could be the race that puts liberal U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in the speaker’s chair.

“Absolutely atrocious” is the phrase Eric Thode, who got his start in politics putting up yard signs for DeLay in 1978, uses to describe that scenario.

“No question it’s possible,” said Thode, GOP chairman in DeLay’s home county until a few months ago. “I would hope that any logical thinking Republican will realize where the blame lies. The blame lies with Tom DeLay.”

Mercy. Of course, Thode does depend upon “logical thinking Republicans” to come to that conclusion. Sadly, logical thinking Republicans seem to be few and far between (except for a couple of Blogsphere Republicans who are logical thinking…most of the time).

But, if Republicans need a villan, who better than The Hammer?

Putting this in perspective, though, Texas Republicans should also realize that if DeLay had not forced his ill-fated Redistricting plan on Texas, Martin Frost might have been the next speaker of the house instead of Minority Leader Pelosi.

Am I crazy? No. If Frost was still in the House, don’t bet that Texans and a lot of Red State Democrats would have been pushing hard for that, given Frost’s seniority. While I have nothing against Leader Pelosi, wouldn’t it have been nice to have another speaker from Texas? Even Republicans in Texas would have to agree with that statement.