What Doomed Dreier's Rise to the Top

[realFedUp]

(numerous phone calls from homophobic conservatives
to Hastert's office did Dreier in)

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

Closet Politics
What doomed Dreier’s rise to the top
by DOUG IRELAND

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.

Flashback: Last fall, I reported on the outing of Dreier in two L.A. Weekly articles, (September 24 and October 1). While the blogosphere quickly echoed the Weekly’s reports, the mainstream U.S. press — which has steadfastly refused to cover the outing campaign that has revealed a host of top Republicans as closeted homosexuals — ignored how Dreier’s closet door had been pried open. By contrast, the eminently respectable and serious British daily The Independent picked up on the outing this summer, when the lead of its June 27 story read, “David Dreier, the Republican congressman expected to mentor Tony Blair’s eldest son Euan during a summer internship in Washington, is a hypocritical homosexual with an anti-gay voting record, critics allege.” The Independent cited the L.A. Weekly’s coverage.

continued

[SteppingRazor]

1. Where would we be without the coverage provided by altweeklies?

Full disclosure: Sincerely,
A journalist at an altweekly :hi:

[realFedUp]

2. amen.

thank you for your work :-)

[SteppingRazor]

3. Eh, I don't do the meaty stuff like in the OP....

So I can't take any credit for the great investigative work done by my colleagues. I write a music column -- spend most of my time in bars and clubs, or on the phone with musicians calling from strange hotel rooms a thousand miles away.
Though I do also contribute political editorials when something paricularly ripe occurs in my area of the world.

[katty]

4. in CA Dreier is an open secret-in LA he's a joke

[hyphenate]

5. Well, as I've said in the past about Dreier

Regardless of his gender preference, he is an asshole, as I lived in his district for 12 of the 15 years I spent in L.A., and he was a very close buddy of George. I am quite happy he failed in his promotion attempt, as I hope to hell he's out of there next year. Unfortunately, except for a more transient group of us who lived in West Covina, the area is largely wealthy and will continue to vote for the sleazebag.

I called his office several times on issues, and was blithely told off in a slightly more "diplomatic" manner.