Alas, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his dancing feet and shaking you-know-what will no longer be featured on “Dancing with the Stars.” And now the Washington Post frames the question: did he bail or was he shoved?
Did the producers of “Dancing With the Stars” drop a brick on Tom DeLay’s feet when he became the show’s main story line and they saw where the ratings were heading?
DeLay resigned from “Dancing With the Stars” on Tuesday — and not a minute too soon as viewers continued to bail out in record numbers. Despite the best efforts of fellow washed-up-celebrity dancer Donny Osmond — efforts that included making out on-camera with the show’s judge Bruno Tonioli while Bruno yelled at him to “come over to the dark side!” — the popular dance competition series had turned into a medical soap opera about DeLay and his stress-fractured feet.
And so, DeLay is gone.
But in a way it seemed like a marriage made in heaven.
DeLay had been giving Americans a song and dance for years, and the show gave him the chance to show Americans a formal dance.
It has raised the question: will other politicians and political celebrities be far behind? Imagine Rush Limbaugh shaking his butt (which would probably be hard since it only moves sharply to the right, and ABC might not have a wide angle lens), Glenn Beck doing a Samba amid tears, Nancy Pelosi doing a bit of retro by frantically dancing the frug, Harry Reid doing the twist (just as he’s now doing in the wind in his troubled re-election bid) — and Mitch McConnell saying “NO!” to any dance he’s asked to do.
But DeLay will always leave us with heartwarming memories of his art dance moves. So — in case you missed them — here are some instant video memories 4 U:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R772tbxa6dU&NR=1
AND:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_qrxesgTlo
AND:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqL3_uCD4Q
You can read more on DeLay’s dancing career HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.