Wash. Post Falsely Claimed Blunt's Wife isn't a lobbyist

[realFedUp]

(cleaning House to Republicans seems to be voting
in the lesser of a lot of evils)

http://mediamatters.org/items/200601120001

Thu, Jan 12, 2006 12:00pm EST

Wash. Post falsely claimed Blunt's wife does not lobby Congress

Summary: The Washington Post falsely reported that the wife of acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt "does not lobby Congress." In fact, Abigail Blunt is a registered lobbyist for Philip Morris, as she was in 2002, when Blunt tried to modify Homeland Security legislation in a way that would have benefited Philip Morris.
In an article in the January 11 edition of The Washington Post, staff writer Jonathan Weisman falsely reported that Abigail Blunt, the wife of acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-MO), is not a congressional lobbyist. In reporting on a move in 2002 by Blunt to modify Homeland Security legislation in a way that would have benefited tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris, Weisman noted that Abigail Blunt -- then Abigail Perlman -- was a lobbyist, but he then wrote that "he does not lobby Congress." In fact, not only is Abigail Blunt currently registered as a congressional lobbyist, she lobbied Congress for Philip Morris at the time. Though she and Blunt were not married, they reportedly had a "personal relationship."

The weblog Fired Up! America was apparently the first media outlet to note the Post's error in reporting that Abigail Blunt "does not lobby Congress."

Rep. Blunt first took heat for the move in summer 2003 after a Washington Post report in June 2003 disclosed his involvement with Philip Morris. Democrats criticized the 2002 attempt to add a measure to the Homeland Security Act of 2002 intended to reduce cigarette smuggling, a provision many claimed was designed to benefit Philip Morris. At the time he was attempting to modify the Homeland Security Act, Blunt reportedly had a "personal relationship" with Perlman, a lobbyist for the tobacco giant. They married in 2003.

continued

[MO_Dem]

1. Repubs delude themselves if

they think of Blunt as "the lesser of two evils". But it's fine with me if they do. The more they keep on doin' what they've been doin', the sooner they lose power.

[pk_du]

2. Easy to verify this kind of shit too

http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0

go here...choose "lobbyist name"...type in Blunt (there are only 2) and one of them is "Abigaul P Blunt" - lobbyist working for "Altria corporate services Inc" (otherwise known as Philip Morris)

[realFedUp]

3. I'm not sure why there are lines through some of the text....

moderators, elad?

[Karmakaze]

4. the quoted text includes an editor's mark

On edit: Let me try this again - I forgot about the different
encoding on this software.

The reason the text is struck out is because the quote you
posted contained an editor's mark showing that a "S"
was changed into a "s".

In the forum software [s] tells the browser to render the
following text as strikethrough. So take out the [ and ] and
that should fix it.

The line will look something like this:

but he then wrote that "[s]he does not lobby
Congress."

so just change it to:

but he then wrote that "she does not lobby
Congress."

[realFedUp]

5. ok

I have no idea how to do that, so read through the lines.
Thanks for the info though :-)

[Karmakaze]

6. You should be able to edit the post...

and just remove the two brackets.

In any case you have to be careful when posting anything with the square brackets or the angle brackets (or greater than/less than) in it. Those are special characters that denote html. So anything that appears between them will disappear, and if the word or letter means something in html strange effects can happen.

[realFedUp]

7. I think I'll just leave it alone...go to the site to read whole thing...

thanks tho!

[Judi Lynn]

8. Here's an unpleasant situation concerning Abby Blunt and husband

Only had time for a very quick google grab, and found this immediately:

Abby, wife of Rep. Roy Blunt (R-K Street), and a lobbyist for Altria, has shifted her lobbying focus from cigarettes to cookies. Altria is the parent company for cigarette maker Phillip Morris.

Abby and Roy were previously embroiled in controversy when just after attaining his leadership post (scroll down), Roy slipped a special provision into the Homeland Security bill that directly benefitted Phillip Morris. Abby and Roy were personally involved at the time, but not yet married.

The outcry was so severe, even from Republicans, that the provision benefitting PM was later removed.
(snip/)

http://www.firedupmissouri.com/node/2389

Predictably creepy, isn't it?



Roy and Abby Blunt