Damn, I Love Matt Taibbi

He's got another cracker-jack article over at Rolling Stone about the post-Abramoff implosion of the Republican Congress, including a look at possible replacements for Tom Delay. Here's a sample of his writing, talking about current acting majority leader Roy Blunt:

There are three candidates for the leadership spot, who represent three distinct strategies for dealing with the current crisis. The front-runner is the acting leader, Blunt, who pointedly represents a strategy of doing nothing at all. Blunt's biography is brimming with the kind of pornographic devotion to money and corporate privilege that was a prerequisite for political success in the good old days.

The Missouri congressman three years ago ditched his wife for a Phillip Morris lobbyist named Abigail Perlman, whom he subsequently married; it's been a profitable marriage, as Phillip Morris (now called Altria) has donated more than $270,000 to committees tied to Blunt. Meanwhile, Blunt's son Andrew is also an Altria lobbyist, and Blunt's other son, Matt, is governor of his home state -- elected, conveniently, with the help of funds from Altria. One gets the impression that the whole family spends its holidays sitting in a circle, two-fistedly smoking Chesterfields while handing each other wads of hundred-dollar bills.

Blunt's hands are also wet with the blood of the Abramoff scandal; as party whip he co-signed (with DeLay) letters on behalf of a Louisiana Indian tribe represented by Abramoff. Meanwhile, Abramoff is one of the first names on the list of 2004 individual donors to Blunt's PAC, the sickeningly named Rely on Your Beliefs fund.