The hammer

"He hailed from the roughneck camps of the Texas oilpatch and the dysfunctional home of an alcoholic father. He started his professional career as owner of a pest control business. His colleagues in the Texas Legislature thought of him as the right-wing crank from a no-account Houston suburb, if good fun at a party; they called him "Hot Tub Tom."" "Today, Tom DeLay is arguably the most powerful man in Congress. He has succeeded in turning the House into a single-party operation - all without the backing of Karl Rove or George W. Bush. He has presided over a transformation of the House of Representatives that has rendered its age-old traditions - the committee system, floor debate, bipartisan collaboration, social relations across party lines - as dated as the brass spittoons that once graced the members' lounges." "How did he get from there to here? In The Hammer Lou Dubose and Jan Reid track DeLay's rise to the pinnacle of power, illuminating not only his personality and policies, but the forces in American politics that have made him a player. Long known for his inflammatory oratory - he dubbed the Environmental Protection Agency "the Gestapo of Government," and said he hadn't se