The Weekly Obsession: Goodbye, Dancing DeLay

We’re guilty of watching and re-watching (and re-re-watching) Tom DeLay boogie down on ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ Now that he’s gone, we think we’ll miss the media’s obsession with him most.

(From our new weekly video series, ‘The Weekly Obsession’)

Did you know White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won a scholarship to attend the Joffrey Ballet School? We think he could be delightful to watch on ‘DWTS’…

Which pols would you like to see sashay in prime time?

Newsweek’s Ramin Setoodeh: How did you campaign for yourself on Dancing With the Stars?

Tom DeLay: Being a whip, counting votes was my talent. I used the Internet, Twitter, Facebook. I contacted my friends who had mailing lists.

NW: Do you think that you only got votes from conservatives?
TD: It was very gratifying. I got e-mails from liberals. I got one that was really neat: “I’ve hated you all my life, but I love what you did on the show.” 

NW: You got into some trouble for saying on TV that you weren’t sure President Obama was born in the United States.
TD: What I said was, to answer a question from Chris Matthews, I said: “Why wouldn’t the president of the United States show the American people his birth certificate?” You have to show a birth certificate to play Little League baseball. It’s a question that should be answered. It’s in the Constitution that you have to be a natural-born citizen of the United States to be president.

NW: Do you think he isn’t a citizen?
TD: I have no idea.

NW: Are you a big reality-TV fan?
TD: I’ve watched Survivor. What’s the show they have in the house?

NW: Big Brother.
TD: Yeah. Those are entertaining. I liked watching dancing shows. I even watch PBS ballroom dancing.

NW: You almost dropped your dancing partner last week. Had that happened before?
TD: Yeah. You stumble and fall and that stuff happens. The key is, I didn’t drop her. I was very proud of the fact that I didn’t drop her.

[Click top link for the full interview]

Regardless of The Hammer’s exit from “DWTS,” Bill-O says it best: “We just can’t resist a dancing Tom DeLay”

This. Will. Never. Get. Old.