Tom DeLay And His Funny, Funny Friends

UPDATE: See here for a response from Tiomoid of Angle, author of "Stomping Out the Reds."

With Tom DeLay's recent troubles, it's a good time to remember something from the long ago past of 2003.

At the end of July, 2003 the College Republican National Committee held their 55th National Convention. According to CRNC's mission statement, it's "the largest and most active student political organization in the nation," with over 100,000 members at 1,000 colleges. Previous high-ranking CRNC staff include Karl Rove, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist.

As you see on the schedule (pdf file), DeLay was the convention's keynote speaker, and was introduced by Jack Abramoff.

As the Washington Post gossip column mentioned at the time, later that day the outgoing CRNC chairman Scott Stewart led the delegates in singing a song called "Stomping Out the Reds." Stewart told the Post that "Stomping Out the Reds" and other songs they sang were "hilarious" because they were so dated and over-the-top.

I could get behind "dated" and "over the top." However, I'm not as sure about the "hilarious" part. That's because "Stomping Out the Reds" is literally sung from the point of view of Nazi Germany. Here are the lyrics; note the reference to "panzers":

To the tune of "Bringing in the Sheaves"

Meet the Left in action, put them all in traction,
Get great satisfaction, bashing in their heads!
Hear each girl and boy sing, triumph loudly voicing,
We'll advance rejoicing, stomping out the Reds!

Stomping out the Reds, stomping out the Reds,
We'll advance rejoicing, stomping out the Reds!

Lib'rals who pooh-pooh them, radicals who woo them,
Pinkoes who debut them, all are dunderheads!
Gladly we'll embrue them, hew and barbecue them,
Passing bullets through them, stomping out the Reds!

Stomping out the Reds, stomping out the Reds,
Passing Bullets through them, stomping out the Reds!

Bayonets bright gleaming, panzers forward streaming steaming,
Hear the Commies screaming, underneath our treads!
Scorn their masses teeming, and their traitors' scheming,
We're the West redeeming, stomping out the Reds!

Stomping out the Reds, stomping out the Reds,
We're the west redeeming, stomping out the Reds!

Now, I could be the one in the wrong here. It could be it's really, really funny when our nation's future Roves enthusiastically sing a song celebrating fascism at a conference featuring the people who run the country. (Other conference attendees included Alberto Gonzales, David Horowitz, Grover Norquist and Karl Rove. Rove received the Lee Atwater Leadership Award just before the singing of "Stomping Out the Reds.")

It may be particularly funny to sing such a song when the powerful people in attendance have been keeping US citizens in custody without charge. I bet Winston Churchill would laugh about all this. Wouldn't he?

The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.
—Winston Churchill, November 21, 1943

Hmm. Well, it's probably just that Churchill and I and most human beings who've ever lived don't have a good sense of humor.

Still, it's interesting to wonder what the reaction would be if something analogous were done by progressives—except it's hard to imagine what that analogous something would be. We'd have to live in an America with a far left wing government that had invaded several countries and was imprisoning US citizens without trial. Then many officials of that government would have to attend a conference of their younger counterparts at which they sang a song celebrating the slaughter of fascists by Stalinist Russia.

The song would also have to be arguably anti-semitic, since "Stomping Out the Reds" mentions "barbecuing" the "Commies" and "traitors." (One of Hitler's rationales for the Holocaust, of course, was that Jews were natural-born traitors who were using communism to sap Germany's vital fluids.) Perhaps the alternate universe song could have approvingly mentioned the Doctor's Plot.

If our current media existed in this alternate universe, I suspect they'd have found the song and the presence of high government officials at the conference to be noteworthy. Here in this universe, however, barely anyone paid attention. The harshest criticism was found in the Washington Post story: it referred to the songsters as "exuberant."

BONU$ FACT$

"Stomping Out the Reds" is the creation of the Party of the Right Tiomoid of Angle, Yale '78 and editor of the songbook of the Party of the Right; the POR is one of the six political parties in Yale's Political Union. The POR was founded by William F. Buckley, which may have something to do with why "Stomping Out the Reds" is so well written.

The outgoing CRNC chairman Scott Stewart graduated from Yale in 1998 after transferring from Brigham Young.

Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer went to Yale and was a member of the Party of the Right. He's written about them and their unwholesome affection for all things Nazi here and here. (I first learned about "Stomping Out the Reds" from Henwood's mailing list, lbo-talk.)

The 56th Biannual CRNC conference is coming up next month. There's still time to register!

The Michigan State Republicans enjoyed "Stomping Out the Reds" so much they put the lyrics and a video of it online. Below are two screen captures of the video; the first shows the people singing at the head table, and the second shows audience members enjoying it in all its hilariousness.

If you look closely at the second picture and watch the video, you'll see it seems the lyrics appear in the banquet program. Ah, to be young and exuberant and... blond.