No Retreat, No Surrender

Many conservatives are drawing a line in the sand against the administration on immigration. For me, the line was drawn with respect to Terri Schiavo—about whom some still don't get it.

To the contrary, they cling unapologetically to the fantasy that they were on the side of angels. As Tom Delay recently proclaimed to the New Yorker, "The Schiavo case was one of my proudest moments in Congress."

While we're discussing Delay, here's another one of his infamous quotes, from an interview in August 2006 with Time:

Q: Do you think you did anything that made you more of a target for your critics? Do you think you made it easier for the opponents to—

A: No. The opponents hate what we do—what we have done in the last 11 years in the majority. We have built the largest political coalition of my adult lifetime. They hate that. We have been effective for 11 years going now, doing some pretty amazing things. They hate that. The reason we've been effective is we've tried to change the culture of Washington, D.C. And do it legally and ethically. The Democrats hate the fact that their culture of K Street has been changed from a totally dominated Democrat K Street [lobbying community] to a totally dominated Republican K Street. Nothing illegal about that at all. And we built that. When we took over in 1995, the K Street contributions to elections was 70/30—70 percent Democrat, 30 percent Republican. Today it's 60-40—60 percent Republican and 40 percent Republican. That's a change in culture. Democrats and the left hate that, and they have worked very hard to destroy it.