Dick Armey formerly of freedom works is really dishing the crap about his former group. So much in fact that he supposedly “accidentally” dished dirt to the wrong group.
Steve Benen over at the Maddow Blog, whom I know from his days at the Carpetbagger report has the story:
There’s been a remarkable amount of drama surrounding Dick Armey’s departure from FreedomWorks, culminating Friday with a stunning report from Media Matters, who interviewed the former House Majority Leader directly. Armey had all kinds of interesting insights to share with the progressive group, including tidbits on pay-for-play agreements with Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and the FreedomWorks’ practice of charging activists to attend free events.
Though many of Armey’s revelations should probably be taken with a grain of salt — the former GOP leader seemed confused about some of the details he shared — there was a larger question that puzzled nearly everyone: why in the world was Dick Armey dishing dirt to Media Matters?
The Daily Caller, a conservative outlet, tracked down the answer.
Dick Armey had no idea he was speaking to the left-wing Media Matters organization during an interview last week, he told The Daily Caller Tuesday. Instead, Armey thought he was chatting with the conservative Media Research Center. […][I]n a Tuesday phone interview with TheDC, Armey insisted that even though [Media Matters blogger Joe Strupp] properly identified himself, it wasn’t until “somebody busted my chops on Facebook” that he realized spoke to a left-wing group…. “That was a major, big screw up on my part. I thought they were somebody else.”
As for who he thought he was speaking to, Armey asked the Daily Caller, “Who’s the guy with the red beard that always does the show where he points out how biased the press is?” Told he seemed to be referring to the Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell, who does a weekly “Media Mash” segment on Fox News, Armey said, “Yeah, I thought it was Brent Bozell.”
Call me a skeptic, but I am not buying that one at all; not one lousy iota. Dick Armey might be old, but he is not that far gone yet. I know what is happening here. Dick Armey is pissed off that he was basically paid to bug off from his organization that he helped create and now he is going around dishing dirt. It is the classic political payback.
What disappoints me is that this is so low-class of Armey to do something like this. I always thought that Armey was a classy fellow, I guess I was wrong about all of that. Seems that the entire right-wing anymore is infected with the classless a-hole disease anymore. I know, that it has always been there, I.E. Malkin, Geller and the like; but now it seems to be everywhere. It is sad too, because I thought that the Tea Party movement would change a good deal of that sort of thing and that the Bush Era of classless Neoconservative politics would finally end. I guess not, some things never change I suppose.
Others: The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, Balloon Juice and The Atlantic Online