Hammered

However, I told Tom that if he were seen as the driving force behind the impeachment effort, it would fail. A partisan impeachment of the president would never win conviction in the Senate. Tom didn't care. He told me he couldn't face his foster children if he did not demonstrate that Clinton's activity was morally wrong.

My stomach wasn't in this effort. I couldn't match the energy of Rudy and Scanlon. They were everywhere, doing the briefing books, leaking to reporters, doing the legal research and whipping the members. They spread rumors that there was evidence that Clinton had raped a woman. I told Tom I was leaving, and he was very gracious. His attack dogs were already on the prowl. He didn't need me.

I left Tom in October 1998, only to come back to work as Hastert's press secretary when he ascended the ladder to speaker three tumultuous months later.

It is often said that Hastert became speaker because DeLay put him there. Not so. Hastert became speaker because of his personal integrity and his ability to accomplish the tasks that members needed. DeLay himself told me two years earlier that he was too radioactive to ever be speaker.

Now, it seems, DeLay is too radioactive even to remain in Congress.

Yet, watching him announce his resignation last week brought me great sadness -- sadness that a politician so gifted could take such a fall. DeLay was an amazing legislator, probably the most talented this town has seen since Lyndon Baines Johnson. But like all great men, Tom DeLay had great talents and one great weakness. In his case, it was some staff members run amok. In the end, that weakness forced him to step down.

johnfeehery@hotmail.com

John Feehery was communications director for Rep. Tom DeLay from 1995 to 1998. He is an executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America.