Attempt to Pick Successor Is Foiled (Conservatives Reject Dreier)

[sabra]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/28/AR2005092802550.html

Attempt to Pick Successor Is Foiled
Blunt Temporarily Takes Reins as Conservatives Reject Dreier

By Shailagh Murray and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 29, 2005; Page A01

As the legal troubles mounted for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in recent weeks, he and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert talked repeatedly to craft a detailed strategy for the Republican leadership for the day when a long-feared indictment arrived.

....

What he and Hastert wanted was a timeserver, someone to hold the job but with no ambitions to stay in it. And they had someone in mind. This week, an aide to the speaker quietly approached Rep. David Dreier about his role in a post-DeLay caucus. Dreier, a congenial Californian who has loyally served the GOP leadership as Rules Committee chairman, expressed interest in helping Hastert.

There was one big problem: When DeLay's indictment was unsealed yesterday, conservatives in the GOP caucus immediately erupted in anger over rumors that the selection of Dreier, whom they regard as too moderate, was being presented as a fait accompli .

As the conservatives met to vent frustrations and plot options, Hastert was changing course in a separate meeting on the second floor of the Capitol. Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), the majority whip, was making a personal appeal for the promotion. Hastert agreed, forestalling a possible revolt by conservatives, who regard Blunt as one of their own.

[Demeter]

1. Better Than A Circular Firing Squad....

a genuine GOP pitbull dogfight. Gotta love it.

(Pass the beer, please)

[turbo_satan]

2. Also, Dreier is G.A.Y. (n/t)

[brentspeak]

3. Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Did I miss something in this article? Dreier is moderate? BS - he's gay.

Isn't that why he was pulled, after an hour or so? Why doesn't the WP say so?

[slay]

19. Being openly gay or outed gets you kicked out of the Gay Republican Mafia

I guess. Or at least the ruling class. Probably because you are no longer blackmail-able. More on the Gay Republican Mafia:

"GOP is Controlled by "Gay Republican Mafia"

“There’s clearly a gay Republican mafia,” one gay staffer whom Rogers has targeted told Tapper. “There’s one in every office.”

So concludes John Byrne's article in Raw Story about Jake Tapper's article in GQ, which is not yet available on the web.

The existence of a "gay Republican mafia" might come as a wee bit of surprise to the viciously homophobic base of the Republican Party, which takes credit for stealing a second term for George W. Bush. According to the Republican Right, millions of homophobes rightmarched to the polls last November to burn loving gay couples at the stake - or at least to deny them a marriage license.

Tapper, of course, didn't set out to expose the "gay Republican mafia." Instead, he set out to attack progressive gays like Mike Rogers of BlogActive.com and John Aravosis of AmericaBlog.com who decided the only way to stop Republican attacks on gays was to expose those Republican homophobes who are themselves gay.

more:
http://www.democrats.com/node/3897

And:

<snip>
REPUBLICANS AND THEIR GAY UNDERWORLD

That many Gay Republicans should prefer the closety games of the 1950s over the open Gay culture that arose out of the post Stonewall era should come as no surprise. They are reactionaries after all. In fact, I know Gay men of a certain age and income who routinely excoriate "the fags" while nonetheless indulging appetites and behaviours that would leave Margaret Sperling's head spinning. But since the lights are out in their orgy rooms, good Republicans are happy to just overlook and pretend not to see. It is the public avowal of affection that makes them crazy over the gay marriage issue. To compare Gay marriage to a perversion, as right next to bestiality is on the face of it insane. Gay people seeking to have stable monogamous relationships accepted into their families and their communities are, in key respects, far more conservative and traditional than the many gays in the republican party who scuttle around in the shadows, procuring illicit sex and using sites like MilitaryEscortM4M.com.

more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/19/204254/937

[DeepModem Mom]

24. Interesting, slay -- thanks! nt

[mitchtv]

5. Sorry, gay man, No leadership for you

come back next year.
bwahahahahaha eat Mcshit LCR's

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Oh please

Drier got shitcanned because he's a "homo," and everybody knows it.

It's like the old Pravda decoding: "congenial Californian" and "too moderate" = guy who likes dick. Period.

The fucking delicate sensibilities of the Washington Post - My LORD!

Hey Drudge! Hey Andrew Sullivan! Hey James Guckert! You guys listening to this? You guys see the treatment you get, O, my congenial Californians!

[IndyJones]

20. Drier isn't hated in CA because he's gay. He's disliked because

he's an idiot.

[alcibiades_mystery]

26. Huh?

I made no such claim.

[Sandpiper]

7. Dear Gay Republicans: Your Party HATES YOU!!!!

Drier was torpedoed for being a homo, no more, no less.


No matter how smart, talented, qualified, etc. you are, the GOP is going to try and keep you down. The GOP feels that if you're not unhappy for being gay, it's their job to make you unhappy.

[donheld]

21. When will these fools realize this

Do they really believe they can change the party from within?

[TOOLZ]

8. How extreme a leader will they flinch to? Will a sensible moderate emerge

Could it be that the hope for steering the madness of the Republican party away from the brink is someone who is realizing it's time to unhijack their party?

[AndyTiedye]

11. No. No More Moderates for the GOP Ever. It's All About The BASE

All they need is their base. The rest of us can all drown for all they care.
They fix the elections, and their pet media covers for them.

[VegasWolf]

9. Men who like men need not apply with the manly Repukes! nt

[VegasWolf]

10. Poor Drier, if he hadn't been outed, he would be Majority Leader tonight.

:nopity:

[texpatriot2004]

12. "Conservatives" are criminals, cause Roy B. is guilty too. n/t

[Riverman]

13. Its Not that Dreier is GAY! It's that he is a HYPOCRIT!

Being a closeted gay republican is not a crime, nor should he be shamed for it. Many men, conceal their sexuality for lots of reasons, so no need to judge him for that.

His hypocracy is the problem! I do not feel one bit sorry for him. Now he knows what gay people feel like when they are treated as less than acceptable.

The Republicans in Congress picked a crook - listed as one of the top 13 most corrupt members of congress - he took money from the same crimminal consultants involved with DeLay. He is one of DeLay's people.

The Repugs prefer to have as their Majority Leader of the Congress a crook rather than an articulate, linda cute, "best dressed member of Congress," closeted homesexual. Such moral dilemnas!

How Sweet this is!

[rodeodance]

14. His hypocracy is the problem! yes.

[ruggerson]

15. I think being a closeted gay republican IS a crime

You serve a party that in its platform calls for essentially a revocation of your very rights as a citizen.

You serve a party that uses you as a wedge issue to stir up hate and bigotry.

You serve a party that wants you dead.

[gulfcoastliberal]

16. Exactly.

People like him have no morals let alone logic.

[jobycom]

18. Does seem a little less liberal around here sometimes, doesn't it?

Lots of ridicule of a man for being gay.

I agree that DUers' biggest problem with him should be the hypocrisy. But I don't agree that the Repubs demoted him because of hypocrisy. They demoted him because he's gay, and their base would not accept that. What the others in this thread are pointing out, some more politely than others, is that you can be gay and be a Republican, but you can't be a Republican and be gay.

[TroglodyteScholar]

25. Repubs reward hypocrisy...

It feeds their twisted culture. Their problem with Drier is that he's pro-choice. A BIG no-no (even bigger than being gay) to the Repub establishment.

[The_Casual_Observer]

17. They couldn't "choke down" Dreier?

[keopeli]

22. This whole story SMELLS to high heaven, if you ask me.

The entire script is controlled by the Republican Party. From "private meetings" between Hastert and Delay, to a "private meeting" with the MAJORITY WHIP - a position of no small power - who, we are to believe, was left out of this process entirely until today.

I'd believe anything but what we're being told.

Maybe Delay was out to get the Gay Republican Congressman and used this tactic to clean house. Maybe the Gay Republican made a shot at power last weekend at a private Republican orgy and the Minority Whip got a whiff. Maybe Pat Robertson pissed someone off.

But, I'm not believing that, at the very last minute, they realized that having a Gay Republican Majority Leader might be a problem with their base.

Anyone else want to give the Kool-aid a pass?

[keopeli]

23. Or maybe they're trying to find someone who can't be brought down legally

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050929/ap_on_go_co/delay_blunt_ellis

Seems Blunt might have a few Abrahmoff's in his closet.

(Sorry for mixing so many metaphors!)

[leesa]

27. Think this Dreier guy will get a clue? Your party hates you.