Tom DeLay undercuts Republican high dudgeon

As Republicans kick up the histrionics about "back-room deals" in the health care reform bill, it's refreshing to revisit a September 2009 forecast/confession by none other than Tom Delay, perhaps the most uninhibited abuser of Congressional norms in modern history:

"The Democrats will do exactly what we always did, rewrite the bill over and over until they give all the members what they need to get to 218 votes. The Senate will do the same thing." It will, he predicts, be a straight party-line vote, and "maybe a few Republicans voting for it, but not many" (my emphasis).

The irony is that there were actually relatively few single-state or district-specific giveaways in the Senate and House HCR bills, and the most notorious Senate carve-outs are being purged via the reconciliation patch. As ever, the Republicans are shameless, and the Democrats easily shamed.

Update: DeLay will be on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. Somehow I doubt he'll be quite as candid as he was in September.