David Fiderer: When Joe Scarborough Dragged Dick Armey (FreedomWorks) Out (Sandy Hume Suicide)

[Hissyspit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-fiderer/when-joe-scarborough-drag_b_256428.html

David Fiderer
Posted: August 11, 2009 10:28 AM

When Joe Scarborough Dragged Dick Armey Out of a Closet of Shame

It was one of those ugly Washington stories that everybody knows about but almost nobody talks about. Joe Scarborough, to his credit, went on the record. In his 2004 Washington memoir, Rome Wasn't Burnt in a Day, Scarborough provides a chilling portrait of the man who leads FreedomWorks, the organization now promoting brownshirt disruptions at town halls across America.

Before he headed Freedomworks, Dick Armey was House Majority Leader. According to Scarborough, Armey was bereft of common decency, a shameless liar who betrayed his colleagues. Armey worked hard to destroy the career of a young reporter. After that reporter's suicide, Armey helped spread rumors about a gay affair between the reporter and Bill Paxon, a congressman who angled to replace Armey as House Leader. Paxon immediately retired from politics, while Armey stayed on. It seemed a life-imitates-art reenactment of the 1959 potboiler, Advice and Consent.

- snip -

In the book, Scarborough outs himself as the confidential source for Sandy Hume's blockbuster article for The Hill, which recounted the behind-the-scenes drama of an aborted Republican coup. In July 1997, G.O.P House members, including Scarborough, were fed up with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who proved to be incompetent when it came to working with people or getting things done. The planned putsch by some twenty-odd renegade members failed because of a last-minute betrayal by House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who turned on his colleagues after learning that Bill Paxon, not Armey, was designated to succeed Gingrich.

- snip -

The obvious insinuation was that Sandy Hume killed himself because he was mortified at suffering the kind of fate borne by Monica Lewinsky, whose affair with Bill Clinton had been first reported one month earlier. Hume frequently appeared on Fox News, an outfit obsessed with the politics of personal destruction.

- snip -

Scarborourgh recounts how he felt when the Journal reporter called:

I sat at my desk, rage growing by the second toward this reporter, Dick Armey, and the sleazy business of politics. For the first time since the coup began, I measured my words and held my anger. "I don't know who Sandy slept with and I don't care. But I do know Sandy didn't get it by having sex with Bill Paxon. Sandy got it by eating ribs in Shirlington with my ten-year-old son and me. I told Sandy everything about the coup from the beginning to end to show everybody what really happened. Bill Paxon didn't give Sandy the story. I did.

Scarborough's candor helped keep Armey's narrative out of the press.

- snip -

Only two things seem certain. Sandy Hume can't speak for himself, and no one in the GOP leadership took Sandy Hume's suicide as a wake-up call to temper the viciousness of their personal attacks. No one, especially at Fox News, ever asked, "Is it possible that if we had no been so relentlessly mean-spirited in attacking the foibles of others, that Brit Hume might still have a son?"

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[asdjrocky]

1. Interesting. Wonder if Moran Joe will comment on this.

[progressoid]

4. Don't hold your breath.

[hlthe2b]

2. I knew most of these details about Sandy Hume & the rest...

I think it is when my disdain for many REPUGs turned to absolute hate... To think of Brit Hume carrying water for these cretins that destroyed his son all these years, it is beyond unfathomable. To think that they protect Dick Armey, and still do. To think Susan Molinari would rather pin this all on Dems than point the finger at those in her own party that actively destroyed her and her husband's futures.... Uggh, such sociopaths

[Mist]

3. Yes, sociopaths involved in cult-like kool-aide drinking behavior. nt

[glitch]

6. Living in their hideous world must be hell on earth.

Fear, resentment and the continuous energy spent on denial must run their lives.

edit: no wonder they crave money and its distractions, like meth to addicts.

[Cha]

5. Wow, it was brit hume's son?

dick armey needs to go down now.

[goclark]

7. Brit Humes son? Anyone have a link?

[abq e streeter]

9. Everything I just checked ,starting with Wikipedia, states this as fact. I certainly assume it is.

[goclark]

10. Wow!

[UTUSN]

8. I've always posted against Brit HUME for being the cold Rethug

as being a factor in the son's suicide. That ALL of these reptiles are involved doesn't change it for me. They are like an orgiastic snake pit. And somehow death and mayhem steam out of SCABBROUGH.