"What's a little pain when you can party?" Tom DeLay told the judges who cooed over his dual foot fracture last night on ABC's Dancing with the Stars.
Clad in a bedazzled shirt featuring an elephant, DeLay tried his hardest to push through the pain, but still he and partner Cheryl Burke (in a sparkling dress with a donkey applique) only managed to earn 15 out of 30 possible points from the judges.
DeLay's daughter Dani told supporters in an email right before the show that he was planning a "sassy" Samba that was a political spoof choreographed by Cheryl. It wasn't quite sassy, as they "danced" around the stage to the tune of "Why can't we be friends."
As we noted last week, injuries have hurt DeLay with the judges, and he revealed last night he now has stress fractures in both feet.
Before the dance, the producers included several clips of DeLay talking about his injury.
"I don't think you should do it. Tom, it's too much," Burke told him.
"The producers and my doctor have told me to withdraw from the competition," DeLay said, adding that his father taught him, "Never, ever give up."
After the dance, they earned a standing ovation, DeLay was called a "super trooper" and judge Carrie Ann Inaba offered a compliment: "You are easy on the eyes when you dance."
DeLay said even if he gets the boot, "it was fun."
"Whatever the judges want to give me I'll take and we'll just move on," he said.
We've got the highlight reel. Watch:
Despite the low score, fans voting via text might come through for him, we'll know tonight. As Dani pointed out in her email, you can vote up to 13 times.

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Xantar
October 6, 2009 11:00 AM
Serious question: why does TPM think any of its readers care about this? Aside from the fact that watching DeLay shaking his booty on the dance floor can be literally nauseating, he's also out of power and totally irrelevant to what's going on in the country. How about we leave this stuff to HuffPost and get back to reporting what actually matters?
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counter coulter
October 6, 2009 12:49 PM in reply to Xantar
Second
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RedMolly
October 6, 2009 2:00 PM in reply to Xantar
Agreed, although "Clad in a bedazzled shirt featuring an elephant" is the funniest phrase I've read all week.
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christovir
October 6, 2009 1:04 PM
Creepiness, thy name is Tom DeLay.
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Mr.E.
October 6, 2009 1:10 PM
And if you're going to cover his, um, "dancing," you might as well mention that he's truly awful and the judges are being quite generous with his scores. (The show has a penchant for coddling the old, untalented celebrities.)
You also might want to mention that he is still under indictment for illegal political contributions, and directly responsible for some of the worst politics and decisions in many years.
His stress fracture was mentioned at the very beginning of the season. I suggested then, and still consider that this may be a manufactured injury to both give him an excuse for his terrible dancing, and to get him off the show asap, due to the negative responses ABC is getting for stupidly choosing to put him on the show in the first place.
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jonnienohands
October 6, 2009 1:56 PM in reply to Mr.E.
Double stress fracture, MY ASS. No way!
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xargaw
October 6, 2009 1:59 PM in reply to Mr.E.
I thought the stripes was a nice touch, although I think he would look much better in black stripes.
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GTFOOH
October 6, 2009 3:22 PM
If this guy isn't in the closet, we are going to have to start a whole new gender classifacation system.
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SOS ICEBERG
October 6, 2009 3:57 PM in reply to GTFOOH
...in which case, not to worry; no need to start a whole new gender classification system.
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