Delay’s nickname, of course, is The Hammer, the same as that of the great Frankish leader Charles Martel (which means the Hammer), who saved Europe from Arab conquest in 732 and labored for decades subduing the barbarians in the forests of Germany, spreading Christianity and rule of law. ~Lawrence Auster

Mr. Auster and his readers are getting weepy over the political demise of Tom DeLay, who was supposedly going to bring the Martel down on the immigration lobby in Congress in his own reprise of the battle of Poitiers. The problem with this weird hero-worship of a disgraced and dishonest man, besides the obvious, is that Mr. DeLay supports immigration restriction the way I support democratising the Middle East. Well, that’s not quite true. He does at least claim to support enforcement of existing immigration laws. He also supports the authorisation of a guest worker program that would make all of the talk of enforcement fairly meaningless. It is rather like securing the door against an intruder before inviting him. That would make him not so much like Charles Martel as it makes him look like Francis I, all around failure and practically the first Christian ruler to collaborate with the Ottomans against the Empire.