The Awesome Train Wreck That Was Tom DeLay on Dancing With the Stars
Holly Bailey
The last time we saw Tom DeLay, he was a scandal-ridden leper slinking back to Texas with nothing left but that giant, threatening smile that made even people who liked him kind of hate him. He had lost it all-his post as house majority leader, his congressional seat, his standing reservation at Signatures, Jack Abramoff’s expense-account lunchery for Republicans headed for ignominy, or prison, or both. Perhaps worst of all, DeLay had lost his mojo as “The Hammer,” the one guy you didn’t dare cross on Capitol Hill and expect to survive. Until the end, he cast himself as a victim of power-hungry Democrats, even though it was Republicans who ultimately threw him overboard. He knew how it worked—after all, he’d done the same thing to Newt Gingrich. And so DeLay went, but he didn’t like it, and like a character straight out of a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western, he promised to get justice and clear his name. “I’ll be back,” DeLay vowed.
Turns out he was right. Last night Tom DeLay made his comeback, and truly, it was a low moment in our nation’s long and stormy history, by which we mean it was totally and completely awesome in every imaginable way. Disgraced politicians choose many paths of redemption, but never did we imagine his resurrection would involve gratuitous booty shaking, cringe-inducing lip syncing and a knee slide straight out of Footloose 2: The Grandpa Years. But that’s what happened last night as DeLay made his big debut on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars. The honest truth is that no words are equal to the task of describing the six astonishing minutes of screentime DeLay commanded last night. It was like the mother of all car wrecks: sickmaking in the extreme, but impossible to turn away. The Hammer was the last “star” to dance on last night’s premiere. His segment begins with a strange Matrix-esque scene, featuring DeLay boogying it up and leaping the air, old-school Toyota-commercial style.
Within seconds, we are with DeLay in the studio, and he is decked out in some truly bootylicious dancing apparel: baggy gray sweat pants, pulled up high on the waist Al Bundy-style, and a crimson Texas A&M t-shirt-tucked in, of course. A lovingly worn pair of Aggie calf warmers would have completed the Flashdance tableau, but we’re just getting greedy. DeLay’s partner, pro dancer Cheryl Burke, gives him a pep talk and DeLay looks on, endearingly starstruck as if he simply cannot believe that he is actually about to put his hands on a woman who looks like that without facing charges the next day. “I’ll teach you how to dance,” Burke says. “And you’ll get the votes.” It’s the first of many absolutely unscripted, completely spontaneous one-liners paying homage to DeLay’s days on Capitol Hill. Suddenly, without any warning at all, the camera focuses in on DeLay’s tush, sashaying. Your Gaggler is suddenly reminded of that beautiful one-liner from Steel Magnolias, when Clairee sees the mayor’s wife dancing: “It’s like two pigs fightin’ under a blanket,” she declares. Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
But wait, there’s drama in the cloak-room dance studio. DeLay just can’t follow directions. After all, he’s the one used to running the show. As Burke instructs “left, left,” DeLay moves to the “right, right.” The Hammer throws his hands in the air in faux exasperation. “Going left for me is absolutely outrageous!” he declares. Ha! He can only move to the right! So spontaneous. Back in the studio, Burke is instructing DeLay to get a little looser with his cha-cha. “I need to get prissier?” he says. “I guess, yeah,” Burke warily responds. In a voiceover, DeLay delivers the best line of the night: “One thing I wasn’t prepared for in learning to dance was getting in touch with my feminine side.” Hey, thief, that’s Nancy Pelosi’s signature line. As we move from the rehearsal studio to the dance floor, ABC sneaks in one more zinger, straight off the top of his head, that the writers had nothing to do with: “I’ve been a conservative all my life, but I know that if I want to do well in the cha-cha, I’m going to have to vote with the Republicans and party with the Democrats.” Nailed it!
Suddenly, there is DeLay on the dance floor, and he is wearing … what is he wearing? It’s an all-brown vest suit with zebra trim and a little bit of rhinestone. It is very Boogie Nights. Somewhere in Idaho, Larry Craig is leaning in very close to his television. Suddenly, the first chord of “Wild Thing” kicks in, and DeLay is flailing his arms in an attempt to emulate something he has been told is called “air guitar.” Eddie Van Halen he is not. Pat Boone he kind of is. And then there’s his butt again, shaking and wiggling and writhing and god in heaven please just make it stop. “Wild Thing,” DeLay mouths to Burke, as they move together into the cha-cha, her smiling and swaying and inwardly wondering how her career all went so wrong and him smiling and stomping and inwardly wondering if there’s any way to erase Dick Armey’s TiVo. By the time he gets down to execute that slo-mo Kevin Bacon knee slide, an emotionally taxed nation is almost too numb to take notice.
At several points in the routine, DeLay suggestively points at Bruno Tonioli, the most outspoken judge on the show—maybe in an effort to score extra points. “You’re crazier than Sarah Palin!” Bruno says afterward in a moment of astute political analysis. And therein lies the explanation, long puzzling, for DeLay’s decision to agree to do the show. It is his ultimate penance for the wrongs he committed and the careers he crushed back in his Hammer days—a beautiful gift to his fellow citizens in a bleak time of recession. Thank you, Tom DeLay. We misjudged you. And we forgive you. Actually, we don’t forgive you quite yet, but we’re softening. Dancing the tango on next week’s show in a puffy shirt and feather boa wouldn’t hurt ...
blog.newsweek.com
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Twenty-Two million people watch Dancing with the Stars, I am told. Makes Glenn Beck look so minor league. Way to go Tom! |
