Tom DeLay Channels Limbaugh: I Want Obama To Fail

Original Link: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/27/delay-obama-fail/

Just days before the Inauguration, Rush Limbaugh famously declared, “I hope [Obama] fails.” Since then, some conservatives have been hesitant to embrace this view. Pat Robertson said, “That was a terrible thing to say.” “Anybody who wants him to fail is an idiot,” said Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC). Responding to Sanford, Limbaugh reiterated his position yesterday, saying, the “hell we don’t” want Obama to fail.

One of those “idiots” adopting Limbaugh’s stance is former House Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX). In an interview with ThinkProgress at CPAC today, we asked DeLay whether he agrees with Limbaugh’s statements. DeLay said Limbaugh was “exactly” right to root for Obama’s failure:

TP: Do you agree with Rush Limbaugh that we shouldn’t hope for President Obama to succeed?

DELAY: Well, exactly right. I don’t want this for our nation. That’s for sure.

ThinkProgress also asked DeLay if the conservative movement feels “liberated” now that President Bush is out of office. DeLay responded that conservatives feel “liberated because they’ve got an enemy they can focus on,” referring to “the left.”

It’s not surprising that DeLay is hoping for the President to fail; he has been slandering Obama for months. “I tagged him as a Marxist months ago,” DeLay boasted during the campaign, recalling his earlier assertions Obama had an “old school Marxist, radical liberal failed ideology.”

In a separate interview with ThinkProgress at CPAC today, DeLay said that Obama is a “con artist.”