Not Sure They Could Make It More Obvious They're Freaked Out About This Whole Ethics Thing

Submitted by .Sean on September 2, 2010 - 9:04am

The reaction from the Roy Blunt campaign to fairly tame talk about their candidate's long record of unethical leadership in Washington has been pretty intense.  Andy Blunt and Matt Blunt want people fired (try not to laugh).  Rich Chrismer says that a strong focus on Roy Blunt's glaring ethical problems means the Robin Carnahan campaign has no focus.  Uh-huh. 

Obviously, the strategy here from Team Blunt is to muddy the waters and distract reporters and voters from very real problems in Blunt's record.  It's simply a fact that Blunt has been dogged by questions regarding his leadership in Washington by the press, independent watchdog organizations -- and members of his own party.

For instance, here's a sampling of what's been written by independent watchdog organizations:

It's worth noting that CREW is more than happy to criticize members of both parties.  As you can see, Democrats outnumber Republicans on the organization's CREWsMostCorrupt.org website.

In 2003, the Washington Post reported that Blunt's relationship with now-wife Abigail Perlman was "raising eyebrows and giving fits to self-appointed ethics cops." Just months earlier, Blunt's attempt to slip in language for benefit Philip Morris into a Homeland Security bill.  By complete coincidence,  Perlman was a lobbyist for Philip Morris, and the two were engaged in a "close personal relationship" at the time.  Blunt's moves to provide the favor for Philip Morris even disgusted Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's chief of staff (!). 

A few years later, Thomas B. Edsall, a journalist who covered Blunt's work as Majority Whip and leadership of the K Street Project as a staff writer for the Washington Post, was so disenchanted and disgusted with Blunt's body of work that he took to the opinion pages of the New York Times to write the following:

SAME OLD PARTY

Last Friday, the Republicans gave the Democrats a gift that will keep on giving: Roy Blunt of Missouri.

After an election repudiating the politics of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay, Republicans elevated Blunt from the number three spot in the leadership to number two.

Roy Blunt embodies the insidious, half-legal corruption that has permeated the G.O.P. majority since 1995. Blunt’s election as minority whip, by a 137-to-57 margin, was a defiant Republican rejection of calls to clean up their act. Warnings by Blunt’s challenger, John Shadegg of Arizona — “We ceded our reform-minded principles in exchange for a ...tighter grip on power” — went unheeded.

In 1998, DeLay put Blunt on the leadership ladder, making him chief deputy whip. Blunt modeled himself on DeLay, creating an identical network of state and federal political committees that raised money from the same lobbyists, corporations and trade associations that financed what became known as DeLay Inc.

If one political operation captured the essence of DeLay’s leadership, it was the Republican takeover of Washington’s influence-peddling industry. This industry, grossing $2.36 billion last year alone, eagerly accommodated DeLay’s demands to replace Democratic lobbyists and association executives with Republicans. In a mutually rewarding relationship, lobbyists who financed DeLay Inc. wrote amendments and bills, while DeLay received a flood of cash to build a multimillion-dollar network of PACs. These committees lavished contributions, corporate jets and year-round entertainment on Republican House members, ensuring their loyalty, and channeled cash into local political parties, helping to win control of state legislatures that, in turn, gerrymandered districts to implement a long-term strategy of larger G.O.P. Congressional majorities.

In 2003, after DeLay moved up to majority leader and turned the so-called K Street Project over to him, Blunt promptly converted a legion of Republican lobbyists into an arm of the House whip operation. Lobbyists have always been close to Congress, under rule by either party. What DeLay and Blunt did was to sacralize this relationship. In doing so, they transferred a chunk of power from Capitol Hill to business interests.

This unholy alliance was a crucial factor in transforming the G.O.P. into an army of spenders whose earmarks, appropriations and tax cuts rivaled the government largess of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Emphasis added.  Shall I go on? 

Despite their apparent reluctance to discuss these facets of Blunt's record as relevant to the 2010 election, the Missouri press corps has previously been quite willing to speak frankly about Blunt's ethical problems.  For example, here's what The Star's Steve Kraske wrote in February 2009:

"[Jim Talent stands] in marked contrast to Blunt, who is D.C. personified.

Not only does he have more K Street ties than Mark Shaleand Jack Henry combined, he's married to a lobbyist. His son is one. His links to that world, and by extension former House majority leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, and by extension (again) disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, are ingredients for a Democratic campaign feast.

    Those connections are a big reason why Blunt's fellow Republicans rejected the Missourian as majority leader in 2006, ultimately denying him his dream of becoming House speaker.

Here's a Post-Dispatch editorial from 2006:

FRESH FACE ISN'T BLUNT'S

In a surprise turnabout, House Republicans rejected Roy Blunt's bid for House ajority leader Thursday, opting to put a new face at the leadership table amid a sea of discontent, desire for reform, and election-year jitters.

GOP members picked Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, as their No. 2 leader in a topsy-turvy election that Blunt, R-Mo., had been expected to win. Buffeted by a widening corruption scandal and sagging public approval ratings, GOP lawmakers itching for change rejected Blunt's pitch that he was a proven leader who would provide vital continuity and legislative results at an already tumultuous turning point for the party...

Blunt's downfall was not solely due to his status as an incumbent.

Lawmakers said that his deep ties to the lobbying effort, his status-quo agenda, and his close relationship with ex-House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, helped doom his bid. DeLay was forced to step aside after a Texas grand jury indicted him last year; he also is under scrutiny in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

When DeLay was the GOP whip, he tapped Blunt -- then just elected to his second term -- to be his deputy. And Blunt had taken over a key DeLay initiative to coordinate the GOP agenda with Washington lobbyists.

Blunt "is part of the team that people wanted a break from," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who supported Shadegg. "People were ready for more reform than (Blunt) was offering."

Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., said Thursday's vote was "an effort to get away fromDeLay and the image" that he brought to the party, which critics said included a very blurry line between legislative favors and political fundraising.

"The fact that DeLay brought Blunt in, I think that worked against him," said Hefley, who was ousted as head of the Ethics Committee last year after that panel had admonished DeLay.

It's not just watchdogs and journalists and Democrats who are saying this.  In 2006, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) explained Blunt's defeat in the GOP Leader elections simply: Blunt "is part of the team that people wanted a break from."  Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO) said of Blunt's defeat, "The message is that we do want to change. We don't want the perception or the reality that this is a place of corruption."

Just yesterday, the Washington Post published a preview of a new book from Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).  Who do you think they're talking about here?

Aggressively looking to distance themselves from their party's past, three top Republican House members are using a new book to repeatedly and often scathingly criticize former GOP leaders.

In "Young Guns," due for release in the next couple of weeks, Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Paul Ryan (Wis.) cast the Republican congressional leaders who preceded them as a group that "betrayed its principles" and was plagued by "failures from high-profile ethics lapses to the inability to rein in spending or even slow the growth of government." Cantor specifically says Republicans became "arrogant and "out of touch."

"Under Republican leadership in the early 2000's, spending and government got out of control," McCarthy writes. "As government grew, there were scandals and political corruption. The focus became getting reelected rather than solving problems and addressing pressing issues."

Shall I go on? 

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