Schadenfreude Again

Seeing the right wing defeat themselves has been enjoyable in many ways. It looks as if a leading light from Texas in the coming administration will be Chet Edwards. He is a Democrat who regained his seat after the dastardly redistricting imbroglio brought to you by the wingers in that 2003 purge.

Rep. Edwards isn't just a senior member who will have influence in this administration, he is a reminder. If the wingers hadn't purged out influential members of congress like Martin Frost, Texas would have much more representation in the government.

Now, with a relatively junior congressional delegation, two senators from the minority party and a White House brain trust likely to be devoid of Texans, the state of the Bushes and LBJ, Rayburn and Cactus Jack, Tom Clark and Tom DeLay faces a political future with "as little clout as in a century," said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University.

"The days when Texans ran the Congress are over," Jillson said. "And we're not going to have the presidency any time in the near future."

Texas Democrats point the finger of blame at Bush, who is leaving office as the most unpopular president in modern American history, and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, who inspired a redistricting plan that cost several senior Democrats their jobs.

"It comes into clear focus now the price Texans are paying because of the partisan folly of the Tom DeLay-driven, mid-decade redistricting," said Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, the most influential Texas Democrat in Washington. "Instead of Texans being in charge of the powerful Rules, Agriculture and Homeland Security committees, their jobs now belong to New York, Minnesota and Mississippi."

For any of you who may have forgotten, an established practice of redistricting after census was ridden over by ambitious Republican party members who had visions of a permanent majority. They powered the mess through, and pitted Democrats in office against right wing electorates in the 2004 election. For a time, that gave them a majority, but it resulted to my glee in the election of a Democrat to replace Tom DeLay when his misdeeds got so out of hand his party wouldn't stand for him any longer. Redistricting had gone forward in his district on the assumption that he would hold on forever, and a large segment of mixed income, mixed race voters were put into that area. They voted in Democrat Lampson, though in this recent election Lampson was ousted by a Republican.

Under the last eight years, progressive projects did not have support in the nation's capitol. Members of the party in power are likely to redeem that long dearth of support.

"The Bush administration never asked for funding for the Trinity River project, under-funded NASA, did not adequately fund the deepening and widening of Houston's ship channel and spent three years trying to close Waco's VA hospital," he added.

Mr. Edwards will be a key player in such battles, given his place on the House Appropriations Committee. He chairs the subcommittee that funds military construction and veterans programs and is No. 2 on the panel that approves energy and water development projects.

The remains of American ideals that is left in the wake of the war criminals, as Diane delineates this morning in her post, will be hard to take back. The Texans who survived some of its worst battles will be ready to take on that chore. They've taken what the occupied WH and its minions dished out, and came out wiser and better.

The worst elements in our society manage to tear down a lot of the structure we need to survive. There are some of us left, even out here in flyover land. We're going to enjoy building back the shining city on a hill the wingers buried in filth.