Gaggle Recap: Tom DeLay Tangos, Not Terribly, on 'Dancing With the Stars'

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Holly Bailey

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Holly Bailey

We seriously thought Tom DeLay was a goner. Despite all the magic of his debut routine on the premiere of Dancing With the Stars—all that booty shaking, the shameful lip syncing and, oh god, that knee slide—DeLay barely made it past George Hamilton’s D-list son and one-hit wonder Macy Gray in the elimination round last week. But scraping by is still a win when the name of the game is survival—and if there’s one thing DeLay knows a thing or two about, it’s scraping by.

But enough talk. Let’s roll tape: the first shot of his segment last night was DeLay gleefully sashaying down the hallway, shaking his hips with a level of concentration we haven’t seen on screen since Baby struggled to find her sense of rhythm in hopes of storming Johnny’s Castle in Dirty Dancing. His partner, regret-plagued pro dancer Cheryl Burke, shoots him a look. “Are those your hips?” she asks. DeLay giggles like a schoolgirl—and randomly, the House Democrats’ poll numbers tick up slightly. As Gloria Estefan might say, the rhythm has gotten him. Cue the voiceover: “I felt great doing the cha cha to 'Wild Thing,' ” the former Republican Majority Leader of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, explains. “I was breaking loose!” Cut to the studio, where DeLay has ditched last week’s assisted-living sweats for a pair of black track pants and a loosely tucked blue polo shirt. We’re making all kinds progress here. “This week, we’re doing the tango,” Cheryl announces. “The tannnngo,” DeLay replies, a little creepily. Cheryl, bless her panicked heart, only smiles.

The tango, of course, is all about sass and attitude—something that DeLay, for all of his hard-charging years in Washington, has trouble mastering. Cheryl tries to teach DeLay how to whip his head sexily. The results aren’t pretty: “I can’t coordinate my head and feet,” DeLay giggles. We feel you, Hammer. We had the same problem back in junior-high cheerleading. “In the tango, your head has to snap precisely at the right moment,” Cheryl tells the camera. “I think Tom’s having trouble with it.” He sure is. In the studio, DeLay whips his head so dramatically it looks like it literally might fall off his body. He grabs his neck in pain. "Don't give yourself whiplash," Cheryl cautions.

But, uh-oh—that’s not only the problem. There’s suddenly a shot of DeLay grimacing in pain, grabbing his foot. The pain, he tells Cheryl, is “excruciating in my toes.” In a voiceover, he explains, they decided to go the doctor. Dramatic development? Not exactly. Word broke before the season actually began that DeLay has a pre-stress fracture in his foot—though, through ABC’s clever editing, it makes it seem as though DeLay injured himself while learning the tango. “If you take it easy between the dancing, you’ll probably make it through it,” the doctor says. “Yes!” DeLay replies, clinching his first a little too enthusiastically. Cut to DeLay in the studio talking to the camera. “I’ve worked too hard, and even though my foot hurts, nothing is going to stop me from doing this dance tonight,” DeLay says with the same kind of intensity he probably used to whip House Republicans into voting for that Medicare/prescription-drug bill they hated years ago. “If your foot breaks, you are going to have to crawl to the judges,” Cheryl orders. Love her.

Cut to the dance floor, and here we go. Your Gaggler can’t say enough about DeLay’s wardrobe. After seeing him in that bedazzled UPS uniform last week, we were convinced he would be a fashion train wreck all season. But dare we say he looks pretty classy tonight—in a Fredo Corleone sort of way. He’s done up in a slick black suit with a green tie. As the music begins, DeLay delivers the head whip he had so much trouble with. Verdict: still a little too Disney animatronic robot for our taste, but, hey, not everybody can cut a rug like a blind Al Pacino. At first, DeLay’s footwork looks a little clumsy, but as the music continues, dare we say, he’s not terrible. With each passing second, DeLay is more confident, and just when it looks like he may deliver a largely flawless performance ... Oh, no. In the final seconds of the dance, DeLay dips Cheryl and loses his balance, almost dumping her in the process. The audience gasps, and DeLay limps toward the judges table, in obvious pain. For a moment, it looks like DeLay might actually cry. He wipes his nose, and his eyes look shiny. “Are you OK?” judge Carrie Ann Inaba asks. “Yeah,” DeLay replies, looking at the ground. His voice is a little choked. “I’m sorry,” he tells Cheryl. It’s kind of sad. It’s also kind of not. The viewing audience is torn along party lines.

But what a minute: Is this a clever way to get sympathy from the judges? With DeLay, you never know. One thing is clear: the judges seem to like him—even the guest judge, Australian director Baz Luhrmann, who tells DeLay he danced with “dignity and grace.” Begyourpardon? If we must say, Baz, we thought DeLay was a little more Barry Fife in his execution. Bruno Tonioli tells DeLay he was “distinguished and determined.” But nothing tops the praise from Carrie Ann, who tells the Hammer that he and Cheryl are “a well-matched couple.” There’s just one thing. Referring to his stumble, she tells DeLay he needs to hold his gut in. “You’ve gotta squeeze them together,” she says, a line that prompts some dirty giggling in the audience. “I don’t think historically that’s been his problem,” snarks host Tom Bergeron. Haha—Wait a minute, what? Backstage, DeLay, cursing his weak, Democrat foot, vows to “dance till it breaks.” He says he’s gotten calls from lots of former colleagues, including former speaker Denny Hastert. “They all think I’m crazy,” DeLay says. Hammer, at least they are saying it to your face this time. DeLay scores an 18—tying with Kathy Ireland for the lowest score of the night. Will he make it to week three? Please. This is America.

Tag(s): Tom DeLay

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