Conservative mag's explanation for Blunt getting DeLay's post --

[highplainsdem]

power politics, with Blunt allied with Rep. Mike Pence and other fiscal conservatives against DeLay.

http://www.spectator.org/blogger.asp

DeLay in meeting earlier in the day with Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, had asked that Rep. David Dreier be elevated to the leadership post. But instead, during a late afternoon caucus meeting, it was determined by Republicans that Blunt would take the post.

There is bad blood between DeLay and Blunt, in part due to sheer power politics, and an attempt by DeLay loyalists to embarrass Blunt last year by airing dirty laundry from Blunt's personal life to reporters at the Washington Post. The reason insiders gave then was that DeLay felt Blunt was getting too big for his britches as whip and needed to be brought down a few notches.

So how does "Operation Offset" come into play here? Yesterday, Blunt and other party leaders met with Pence to discuss how best to implement some of the Republican Study Committee's spending cut recommendations. Blunt has previously helped Pence and his fiscal conservatives beat back budget appropriations issues earlier this year, a victory that burned DeLay.

Right now up on Capitol Hill, fiscal conservatives are feeling pretty good about their chances of getting their cuts at least considered by the full House with Blunt in the leadership chair.


So much for the wonderful party unity DeLay claimed he saw in their caucus today...

[thefloyd]

1. What

Dirty Laundry was aired regarding Blunt's personal life? Blunt Looks uptight to me

[highplainsdem]

3. Since the Spectator mentioned a story in the Washington Post,

I'm guessing it was this one

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41839-2003Jun10?language=printer

though that was actually two years ago, not last year:

GOP Whip Quietly Tried to Aid Big Donor
Provision Was Meant To Help Philip Morris
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 11, 2003; Page A01


Only hours after Rep. Roy Blunt was named to the House's third-highest leadership job in November, he surprised his fellow top Republicans by trying to quietly insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris USA into the 475-page bill creating a Department of Homeland Security, according to several people familiar with the effort.

The new majority whip, who has close personal and political ties to the company, instructed congressional aides to add the tobacco provision to the bill -- then within hours of a final House vote -- even though no one else in leadership supported it or knew he was trying to squeeze it in.

Once alerted to the provision, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, quickly had it pulled out, said a senior GOP leader who requested anonymity. Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) also opposed what Blunt (Mo.) was trying to do, the member said, and "worked against it" when he learned of it.

The provision would have made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes, two practices that cut into Philip Morris's profits. Blunt has received large campaign donations from Philip Morris, his son works for the company in Missouri and the House member has a close personal relationship with a Washington lobbyist for the firm.



More details about this in a Columbia MO newspaper story from last year, by which time Blunt had married Abigail Perlman, the Washington lobbyist for Philip Morris:

http://www.showmenews.com/2004/May/20040509Feat005.asp


Besides causing personal pain, the turmoil has taken a political toll. Last summer, The Washington Post reported that only hours after Blunt assumed the whip’s job, he quietly tried to insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris into a bill creating a new Department of Homeland Security.

According to the Post, Blunt instructed aides to add the provision - it made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes - "even though no one else in leadership supported it or knew he was trying to squeeze it in."

Blunt said that the story was "largely misreported" and that DeLay "had agreed to do this before I ever got involved in it." He defended the cigarette measure as good policy, pointing out that the Senate passed a similar measure last year.

But the measure prompted a frenzy of negative publicity, and Missouri Democrats have hammered Blunt. They particularly targeted his relationship with Perlman and the fact that Blunt’s younger son, Andy, is a state government lobbyist who counts Philip Morris as a client.

[thefloyd]

4. I would

not consider conflicts of interest "airing diry laundry about someone's personal life"

[highplainsdem]

5. I've done a lot of checking trying to find any story about Blunt that

would fit the American Spectator's description better, but haven't been able to find any, even on websites like http://www.bluntfacts.com/ . The complete WaPo story I quoted and posted a link for makes it clear that the info came from insiders more loyal to DeLay than to Blunt, and also makes it clear that the insiders wanted the Post to emphasize Blunt's affair with that lobbyist for Philip Morris. I'd call that airing dirty laundry about his personal life. But if there was a later WaPo story that fits the description better, I hope someone will post a link for it.

[thefloyd]

6. Affair would

be Dirty Laundry. I did not read the entire article. my fault

[AlCzervik]

8. His affair with big tobacco was the only thing i could find.

[MADem]

2. With friends like that....

I heard Chris Shays on TV this evening "complimenting" DeLay by saying, in essence, that if he came after you with a knife, it would be in the belly and not in the back.

Talk about faint praise!!! When you are an asshole, it is no surprise when people do not boohoo at your fall from grace...

[highplainsdem]

7. kicking for the morning crowd