Rebel Outsider

There's now a slightly lower percentage than the six lobbyists per lawmaker working on health care reform, as Dick Armey has to take his ball and go home. This is an epic whine:

Dick Armey, the former House Majority Leader, is leaving his job with top Washington lobbying firm DLA Piper, citing negative attention that the firm is receiving thanks to the role of Armey's corporate-backed outfit, FreedomWorks, in turning out protesters to shut down town hall meetings on health care.

It is painful and frustrating to see a good, decent, able and effective partnership of honorable men and women and their clients attacked for things in which they are not involved simply because of their association with me. One would expect a higher degree of competence and professionalism from members of the media than spurious attacks on innocent bystanders.

Let me be perfectly clear about DLA Piper. It is a fine firm with good, competent people. It has been my privilege to be associated with them, and I will miss them. I am leaving the firm with regret but also with anticipation of being more fully engaged in the nation's struggle and without having attacks on me being directed at others.

It is imperative for me, within the context of my life's work in the defense of personal liberty against the encroachments of big government, to give my undivided attention to the work we do at FreedomWorks. In short, the threat to personal liberty in America is so serious and imminent at this time that it requires the full commitment of my efforts. While I consider it a personal sacrifice to leave DLA Piper, it is a sacrifice I must make in light of the important work I am committed to at FreedomWorks.

Poor, poor Dick Armey. His job as a corporate lobbyist was getting all mixed up with his work to turn people against health care reform and toward a position backed by corporate interests! I can't see how anyone would possibly make the connection.

Now that the former House majority leader and lobbyist has resigned, I'm sure people will see FreedomWorks for what it is - a noble, completely organic upspring coming from the depths of the grassroots to impact the corridors of power at the highest levels. Given that Armey is now such an outsider, it's amazing he was even invited on Meet The Press to lie about Moveon.org and his role in the extremism of town hall meetings. Must be all that amazing grassroots organizing.

And finally, now that it's obvious that Armey said things he knows are untrue on national television, any chance he'll be barred from returning? Will bookers conclude that Armey shouldn't be invited onto television news programs, since he's obviously willing to lie to the public? No, that's not how the game is played, which is why hacks like Armey feel comfortable lying in the first place -- there are no consequences.

Why does Steve Benen hate ordinary Americans like Dick Armey having a voice in the public debate? I mean, they have no other resources.

The K Street Lynch Mobs

Jane has the deets on Freedomworks, the lobbyist-funded group activating the teabag rallies at health care town halls across the country. Somehow CBS, with its large cadre of producers and researchers, put a Freedom Works spokesman on its air last night without disclosing their ties, but a blogger with virtually no staff can uncover all this useful information about the organization.

Freedomworks isn't some "organic grassroots" outfit. It's run by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey -- corporate lobbyist, global warming denier and ladie's man. The President and CEO of Freedomworks is Matt Kibbee, who was trained by Lee Atwater. Kibbe was behind the attempt to get Ralph Nader put on the ballot in Oregon in 2004, prompting a complaint to the FEC of illegal collusion with the GOP.

Steve Forbes is on the FreedomWorks board. As Paul Krugman noted, their money comes from the Koch, Scaife, Bradley, Olin nexus, as well as other reliable funders of right wing infrastructure including Exxon Mobil.

Freedomworks has a long history of skunk works. In 2004, a woman who identified herself as a "single mother" in Iowa, Sandra Jacques, appeared at a George Bush town hall and gushed about his plan to privatize Social Security. She left out the part about being an employee of Freedomworks, who were lobbying on the issue at the time.

David Koch is also Chairman of the other major outfit heavily involved in these "organic" uprisings, Americans for Prosperity, whose members lynched Democrat Frank Kratovil in effigy. Koch is the 19th richest man in the world. They recently renamed the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center the David H. Koch Theater.

These aren't just some organizations that these guys gave money to. They run them.

Americans for Prosperity, incidentally, are on the record about busing their people to rally against reform in 13 states.

Brian Beutler of TPMDC - again, with resources not nearly as large as CBS - has a lot more. He notes the role of Conservatives for Patients Rights, founded and funded by Rick Scott, a disgraced former head of the Columbia/HCA health-care company who paid the largest fine in US history, $1.7 billion dollars, for overcharging state and federal health plans. This guy has sunk millions of dollars of health industry money into anti-reform ads, and if you read Beutler's piece, they are clearly orchestrating this "organic" uprising among the teabaggers.

The people on the ground may have their own extremist, anti-government beliefs. But they are being activated by corporate lobbyist-backed astroturf groups.

UPDATE: This is a very, very good point from Ezra, and I've noticed this too at most of the meetings I've attended:

I've been attending health-care panels and events on a pretty regular basis for four or five years now. Each event, of course, is its own precious snowflake, with its own set of graphs and bullet points and dweebish jokes. But one thing is perfectly predictable: The Q&A session will be dominated by single-payer activists asking about HR 676.

There's not a mystery as to why this happens: Single-payer activists are very well organized, and they make a point to dispatch their people to these events and get their members to the microphone and ensure that their perspective is heard. But as the bills under consideration suggest, politicians have had no problem ignoring the single-payer grassroots. Max Baucus ruled out their participation on day one. The media hasn't shown the slightest inclination to cover their presence at event after event after event.

To extend this a bit, 15 million people protested the Iraq war and the coverage was virtually nil. Lobbyists bus 100 people into a Congressional town hall and the media hypes the "Tehran-like" atmosphere of them. Groups of people at town hall meetings are not perfect indicators of the overall attitudes of a population, and even among the town halls, traditional media highlights and politicians respond to very selective segments of those groups.