Arizona Bushwhacker wrote:
I wonder how long until Bush invites Dreier to spend
a weekend with him at Camp David?
If he suddenly show up with a shaved head, then we'll he's AWOL Bush's favorite!
<http://warnet.ws/index.php?subaction=showcomments&id=1110928890&archive=&start_from=&ucat=7&page=humor>
"GW Chimpzilla" <gw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:7XA_e.372807$x96.54553@attbi_s72...
Gay Republican set to become House Majority Leader
John Byrne
AP is reporting that Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) is expected to at least
temporarily succeed House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) as majority
leader,
following DeLay's indictment.
RAW STORY revealed Dreier was gay and lived with his chief of staff last
year.
LA Weekly then outed him, and he promptly disappeared from the television
news
show circuit. Our story, which originally ran Sept. 20, 2004, follows in
full.
#
A Republican congressman from California who has repeatedly voted against
gay
rights measures is said to be gay himself, and at least three MediaNews
Group
newspapers are said to have instructed its reporters not to ask questions
about
the congressman's sexuality or how it relates to public policy.
Brad Smith, Dreier's chief of staff with whom he is said to have lived, is
paid
an unusually high salary relative to the chief of staffs of other powerful
congressmen, including Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
After RAW STORY ran an article suggesting that Congressman David Dreier,
R-CA,
might be gay, Hustler Magazine revealed that they planned a major expose
exploring the conflict between the congressman's sexuality and his
positions on
gay rights.
Michael Rogers, the gay activist who outed Dreier Thursday on his site,
blogACTIVE, said he "was especially interested in talking with Brad Smith
about
his living arrangements with the Congressman here in DC."
Challenger says she was aware he lived with Smith
Dreier's 2000 challenger has also said she was aware Dreier was living
with
Smith.
Dr. Janice Nelson, a professor of pathology and a medical director who
lost to
Dreier in 1998 and 2000, stated that her campaign was aware Rep. Dreier
had
lived with his chief of staff but opted not to make an issue of it during
her
campaign.
She said Dreier would rarely be seen publicly with Smith.
"Brad was like an invisible presence," she said. "They really have the
routine
down slick."
Nelson said she decided to come forward after she read on RAW STORY that
Hustler
was set to report that the local papers in Dreier's district had
deliberately
kept reporters from asking the congressman about his sexuality and his
positions on gay rights.
Smith's high salary has also raised eyebrows. During the last reporting
period,
Smith made $156,600, just $400 shy of the highest paid White House staff
member, Assistant to the President Karl Rove, who made $157,000. It is
also
$400 less than President George W. Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, who
receives an annual salary of $157,000.
By comparison, the chief of staff to Bill Young, who chairs the even more
prominent House Appropriations Committee, makes $151,956, more than $4,600
less
than Smith. The chief of staff to Republican James Sensenbrenner, Jr., who
chairs the House Committee on the Judiciary, made $126,000. The chief of
staff
to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, made $100,696.
Local papers accused of shielding Dreier's gay truth
Hustler also released a letter sent to the editor of a newspaper in
Dreier's
district which suggests that the paper deliberately worked to keep
Dreier's
sexuality and his positions on gay issues off the front page.
"Hustler believes that the best way to deal with what appears to be
glaring
examples of hypocrisy is to expose them and bring them into full relief in
front of the public," the magazine said. "Our team of journalists in New
York
City covering the GOP convention struck gold-the details of which are to
be
published in an upcoming issue this fall."
Hustler also says the media has played along in a charade to preserve the
Dreier's heterosexual facade. They accused three MediaNews papers in
Dreier's
local district of deliberately keeping their reporters from asking Rep.
Dreier
about his sexuality or his positions on issues relating to gay rights,
saying
that reporters would be fired if they asked.
Mark Cromer, a Hustler editor who has worked at the MediaNews papers, said
the
papers considered Dreier a "sacred cow." A MediaNews editor denied the
charge.
The newsroom at least one of these papers was said to seriously
questioning
editors as to why they are not allowed to cover the nationally-breaking
Dreier
story, and an editor is reported to have slammed his first on the desk "as
if
to send the denial of a policy home."
Still, the papers have reporting nothing as regards the congressman's
sexuality
or his highly paid chief of staff, with whom he is said to have lived.
"The people in Dreier's district have to ask themselves: have they been
served
by their newspapers?" Cromer said.
Congressman regularly voted against gay rights
The 52-year-old single congressman voted for the Marriage Protection Act
in
July, a measure that would have stripped federal courts of jurisdiction
over
challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, which bans the federal
government
from recognizing gay partnerships. Dreier did not vote on the latest
amendment
to constitutionally ban gay marriage, and said he was against it.
Dreier, a Christian Scientist, also voted for the original Defense of
Marriage
Act in 1996 and a measure that banned gays from adopting in Washington,
D.C. He
has a 92 percent favorability rating from the Christian Coalition, and was
elected with Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Hustler sent Dreier a letter Sept. 7 asking to interview him about the
"intersection of human sexuality, national politics and the conservative
agenda." They have not received a response.
When asked if he was heterosexual on a Sirus Radio interview Aug. 31, Rep.
Dreier refused to answer.
"I'm not going to talk about that issue," Dreier said. "That's really not
what
I'm here about."
Viewed as shining star of House Republicans
Congressman Dreier is viewed as the Silicon Valley's man in Washington and
an
affable star of the House Republican leadership. In a July profile
published by
the San Jose Mercury News, the paper said he had become a leading public
face
for the party.
"More eloquent than understated House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and
more
ingratiating than tough-talking Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, Dreier
has
emerged as the House GOP leadership's public face on television," a
reporter
wrote.
Charlie Black, an adviser to the Bush re-election campaign, told the paper
the
Bush attitude is, ''Get him on every show you can.''
Rep. Dreier is the chair of the powerful Rules Committee in the House of
Representatives. He played a large role in the recall of former California
governor Gray Davis, and in the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
<http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Gay_Republican_eyed_to_become_House_0928.html
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