Closet Politics: What doomed Dreier’s rise to the top

[kweerwolf]

When House Speaker Dennis Hastert announced on September 28 that California Congressman David Dreier — the powerful chair of the House Rules Committee and buddy of Governor Schwarzenegger, whose transition team he headed — would be his nominee to replace the indicted Tom DeLay, that should have made it a done deal.

But by the time the House Republican Conference convened to formalize the election of a new majority leader on the afternoon of Hastert’s breakfast anointing of Dreier, there was an unexpected revolt by conservative Republicans. In a stunning challenge to the speaker, they insisted on dumping Dreier in favor of Christian right darling Roy Blunt of Missouri. Dreier, who had already been trumpeted by the national media as the next majority leader, all but disappeared from press coverage — and so did the real reasons for the unexpected refusal by Republican members of Congress to back him.

What really happened?

“A Different Kind of Republican” was the way the Washington Post Web site bannered the story after Hastert picked Dreier. Whoever wrote that headline had a muffled sense of humor because, although the Post’s story talked about how the slickly telegenic congressman from Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, while “reliably conservative... never comes off as extreme,” it failed to mention what truly set Dreier apart from most of his Republican colleagues — the fact that Dreier is a closeted homosexual who has slavishly followed the homophobic GOP party line.

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/47/news-ireland.php