Michael Crowley
Attention DeLay-downfall junkies: Succession battle silver-medalist David Dreier to appear on Charlie Rose tonight. (Also a guest: Philip Seymour Hoffman. Oh, for the dada comedy of those two interviewing each other.)
There are a lot of Roy Blunt crib sheets out there right now. But for my money, this Washington Post profile is the best one-stop reading on the man.
It’s far from clear what Tom DeLay’s departure means for House Republicans. One academic in today’s papers offered the excellent metaphor of Marshall Tito’s fall from power in Yugoslavia and the resulting civil war there. (Which raises the pressing question: who shall be the House GOP’s Slobodan Milosevic?) Others expect Republicans to circle their wagons and for Blunt to continue the same ruthless discipline as his predecessor.
My first hunch is the latter. As this Post piece indicates, Blunt seems to have modelled himself after DeLay in every way — with perhaps less of the Texan’s mean-spirited partisan vitriol. But that was never what made DeLay effective anyway.
No, I think the fundamental basis for DeLay’s unprecedented reign of terror has been his phenomenal K Street power base, cultivated over many years through unchecked access-peddling and sheer intimidation. This network serves as part fund-raising juggernaut, part patronage machine, and part political-advocacy operation. And so DeLay commanded the loyalty of House Republicans not just because he’s a real Texas sh*tkicker, but because his K Street empire is one of the most fearsome tools in Washington history — a kind of awe-inspiring political Death Star whose reactor shaft Democrats have never been able to locate.
And to read the Post article, it seems Blunt learned that lesson well. As Thomas Edsall puts it:
Blunt’s organization in scope has begun to rival “DeLay Inc.” — the political fundraising committees, extensive favor-giving and alliances with Republican lobbyists that the majority leader has used to become one of the most influential leaders in memory.
In other words, Blunt, Inc. is the new DeLay, Inc. Or put another way: “The king is dead. Long live the king!”
Josh linked to a useful Roy Blunt backgrounder yesterday. But there’s one specific episode worth considering as a case study in how Blunt operates (which, truth be told, is not all that different from how Tom DeLay operates). Flash back to November 2002, with Blunt newly installed as House Republican Whip. At the time, the House was gearing up to vote on the mammoth bill creating the new Department of Homeland Security. To some, it was a crucial public-policy moment. To Blunt, evidently, it was an opportunity. According to some fine reporting by The Washington Post, Blunt “surprised his fellow top Republicans by trying to quietly insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris USA into the 475-page bill.” Here’s some more detail from the Post:
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.
It is highly unusual for a House Republican to insert a last-minute contentious provision that has never gone through a committee, never faced a House vote and never been approved by the speaker or majority leader. Blunt’s attempt became known only to a small circle of House and White House officials. They kept it quiet, preferring no publicity on a matter involving favors for the nation’s biggest tobacco company and possible claims of conflicts of interest.
Several in that circle say they were struck by Blunt’s willingness to go out on a limb for a company to which he has ties. What’s more, he did it within hours of climbing to the House leadership’s third-highest rung, a notable achievement for a man who came to Washington less than six years ago.
A senior Republican lawmaker who requested anonymity said some GOP members worried at the time that it would be “embarrassing” to the party and its new whip if details of the effort were made public. Another Republican said Blunt’s effort angered some leaders because there was “so little support for” a pro-tobacco provision likely to generate controversy.
Notice the reference to Blunt’s <$Ad$>“close personal relationship” to a Phillip Morris lobbyist. That would be one Abigail Perlman, to whom Blunt is now married. (Say what you will about Tom DeLay and his seamless relationship with K Street lobbyists, he never actually shared a bed with one!) And let’s not forget that Blunt’s son, Andrew, is also a lobbyist for the tobacco maker back in Missouri.
This episode doesn’t just illustrate the nexis between leading House Republicans and corporate lobbyists. It’s also an example of the increasingly undemocratic way the House operates under the current GOP leadership. The average American might be shocked at the notion that Blunt could slip a small provision that had never been debated or voted upon into a 475-page bill hours before its passage and almost get away with it. But folks would be thoroughly aghast to know how often even more egregious provisions actually sneak through. (Blunt has defended his provision on the grounds that cigarette smuggling is a source of revenue for suspected terrorists, which is true. But if this bit of lawmaking was so truly noble, why not publicly debate it for all to see?)
At the time, I recall, some folks speculated that Blunt had been ratted out by a certain House GOP rival — hint: he’s in a little hot water down in Travis County at the moment — wary of Blunt’s rising profile. Given the way Blunt muscled himself into the Majority Leader slot yesterday, maybe his rival was right to be worried.
Hi all, and many thanks to Josh for having me back. Lots of delightful DeLay fallout to chew over this afternoon, but let’s kick off with a breathtaking quickie that simply can’t wait. <$NoAd$>
It comes via an email from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who is demanding an apology from conservative morals guru (and Vegas high-roller) William Bennett, for what Reid’s office says was the following remark made by Bennett on his talk radio show yesterday:
⦠you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.
I haven’t seen the original context. But even with Bennett’s caveat, could there possibly be an exculpatory context? And did someone cast a voodoo curse on prominent conservatives recently ensuring they would all destroy themselves by the end of 2005?
Update: Media Matters has the transcript and audio. It seems Bennett was led down this road by a remarkably kooky caller. But I’m not sure it means he’s exonerated.
It was just a few years ago that I would see Josh, before he moved to New York, hunched over his laptop in the Starbucks of our Dupont Circle neighborhood, and wonder whether he was headed down some nutty Internet rabbit hole never to be heard from again. Now here I am thanking him for trusting me with his huge audience of loyal readers. Color me humbled.
Thanks also to (nearly) everyone who wrote in. I’d never quite appreciated the crucial role of blog readers until I started getting dozens of emails from complete strangers filled with all sorts of great insights and information. For instance, one very thoughtful reader who knows a lot about Mark Fuhrman insists he’s not the racist villain he was made out to be. A persistent skeptic in Ohio is certain there’s a good reason other Democrats are loath to challenge Mike DeWine and that Paul Hackett would face daunting odds if he does. And to that one Yngwie Malmsteen fan: devil’s horns right back at ya!
That white smoke you now see billowing in the sky is the fabled signal for “Habemas blogam,” or, “We have a new blogger.” That would be the formidable Steve Clemons, senior fellow at the New America Foundation and author of The Washington Note. As you may know, Steve and Josh are sympatico on many key issues, so no doubt Steve will be a terrific read for the duration of Josh’s absence.
And if you don’t already, please do visit The New Republic Online. You might not agree with everything there, but hopefully you’ll find it all provocative, informative, and generally worth your while. Cheers!
Josh briefly flagged it back in June, but since then Coleen Rowley’s bid for Congress in Minnesota has drawn surprisingly little attention. The former FBI whistleblower and 2002 Time Person of the Year has emerged as a strident critic of the Iraq war, which she’s called a Vietnam-like “quagmire” that has made America less safe. If I’m reading this editorial correctly, she seems to believe the U.S. should withdraw pronto. And now she’s just returned from a weekend at Cindy Sheehan’s Crawford peace camp.
Rowley’s opponent, incumbent Republican John Kline, is a real Establishment Man: a former Marine Corps Vietnam vet who carried the nuclear “football” for a time under Carter and Reagan. He’s the antithesis, in other words, of an anti-war Sheehan-aligned whistleblower. So this race promises to be an intense culturo-political flashpoint — particularly when you throw in the recriminations over ignored September 11 warnings that Rowley’s sure to invoke. Sooner or later, I expect, Fox News will be obsessing over this one.
A few months ago I might have said that Rowley’s aggressively liberal posture would be a problem in a district that George Bush carried with 56 percent of the vote. But in the wake of Paul Hackett’s near win in Ohio Red country, and with Bush’s approval ratings plunging to new depths, I’m not so sure anymore.
The caliber of Rowley’s political skills remains to be seen. But Republicans like Kline must be in a cold sweat over the war, and over Bush’s flailing attempts to shore up public opinion. How Rowley fares in the months ahead could tell us a lot about the Democrats’ overall chances in 2006.
This is probably my last post before I sign off later tonight. It’s been a blast.
Oh, man! I know eight-year-olds who would be embarassed by this excuse: Pat Robertson says he was “misinterpreted.” You gotta check out the details.
If you’ll indulge another oddball reference (don’t worry, this is my last day!), Robertson’s pathetic cover story reminds me of the great old Monty Python “Piranha Brothers” routine:
Rogers: I’ve been told Dinsdale Piranha nailed your head to the floor.
Stig: No! Never! He was a smashing bloke. He used to buy his mother flowers and that. He was like a brother to me.
Rogers: But the police have film of Dinsdale actually nailing your head to the floor.
Stig: (pause) Oh yeah, he did that.
Memo to Robertson: Don’t bother. The police have film of you nailing your own head to the floor…
Here’s an interesting angle to the seemingly intractable Darfur tragedy. The group BeAWitness.org has created an ad mocking network television’s obsession with ephemera like Michael Jackson and the Runaway Bride while thousands upon thousands die miserably in the Sudan. The group says all three major networks have refused to air the ad.
As a personal aside, I actually tried to watch some coverage of the Natalee Holloway disappearance on Fox News the other night. (She’s the Alabama teen who went missing in Aruba.) And while I was able to derive bits of cheap pleasure from the Michael Jackson trial and even the Scott Peterson saga, I must say this story seems utterly mind-numbing. Of course one feels for Natalee’s family and hopes against hope that she turns up alive. But there was clearly so little to discuss — the case seems pretty well stalled — it just felt like an excruciating waste of time. The only fun part was watching Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes trying to feign real interest. Yet this stuff gets incredible ratings. Call me out of touch, but I find that nothing short of bizarre.
Another depressing footnote: one guest on this show was Mark Fuhrman, who has apparently made a new career as an author and commentator on trashy tabloid crimes. Ten years after he was revealed to be an astonishingly hateful racist, leading one of his assocates to say “Fuhrman’s life is in the toilet. He has no job, no future,” Fuhrman seems to be doing pretty well for himself. Wonder if he’s even heard of Darfur. I guess it doesn’t matter.
Anyway, watch the ad. It’s provocative.
On a lighter note, I’ve got a short ‘Diarist’ in the forthcoming issue of TNR on rock snobs, music collecting, and what you might call the dark side of the iPod. I hope even non-music geeks will find it interesting.
(This link is now open for non-TNR subscribers, as is Spencer Ackerman’s piece on the Iraq constitution.)