Rabble Rousing Cost Dick Armey His Job

Can’t help but be amused that Dick Armey, the smarmy Republican, lost his cushy lobbyist job at DLA Piper because of his connections with the scream-fests at recent Town Hall meetings.

Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader, has quit his job with the lobbying firm DLA Piper amid complaints from its drug company clients about his work opposing President Obama’s health care overhaul.

To review the facts of this case: the drug companies who helped defeat the Clinton administration health care effort 15 years ago have now turned on Mr. Armey, who then was one of their most important Congressional allies. Now, having cut a deal with this administration to limit their share of the costs, the drug companies are on the other side. Foreseeing new profits from the expansion of health coverage, they are spending as much as $150 million on advertisements to support the president’s plan.

To their embarrassment, however, Mr. Armey has continued to oppose the plan as the chairman of the independent conservative group FreedomWorks. The group has helped turn out rowdy demonstrators at town-hall-style meetings with lawmakers around the country.

Click to continue reading Drug Firms Cost Dick Armey His Lobby Job – NYTimes.com]

Not Every Object Contains Meaning

Somewhat annoyingly, David Kirkpatrick, the journalist who filed this story, didn’t bother to cite the blogs who broke the story:

And some liberal Web sites began connecting Mr. Armey’s fight against the health care legislation to his other work for DLA Piper’s drug company clients.

Would it have been that difficult to name these “liberal Web sites”? If Reuters or The Washington Post or even Bill Moyers had first reported the connection, the New York Times would have mentioned them by name, like in this story about a possible competitor to Nielsen:

The plan was first reported by The Financial Times.

A simple declarative sentence giving credit where credit is due.

I still don’t know who first reported the news. Was it Talking Points Memo? or somebody else.

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