This was an interesting Friday afternoon news item: Dick Armey — lately infamous for his work promoting Freedomworks, the corporate-backed group astroturfing Town Halls this summer — has quit his lobbyist job at DLA Piper,claiming to want to work full-time on the Freedomworks thing. Rachel Maddow, you’ll remember, did an extensive piece showing Armey’s connection to Freedomworks as well at to DLA Piper and the multiple corporate backers of both. TPM has the statement from Armey and notes:
Reading between the lines here, it looks like DLA Piper — concerned about Armey’s activism against an administration it seeks to influence — pushed him out.
FreedomWorks has played a major role in coordinating the efforts of the right-wing Tea Party movement, including on opposing health-care-reform.
And as TPMmuckraker reported this morning, it also is helping to fund astroturf events aimed at blocking climate change legislation.
The NY Times reports that Armey was specifically pushed out by the drug companies his firm represented. They are currently supporting of some form of reform and they didn’t want the face of the astroturf working both sides of the street.
I’m hoping that Rachel Maddow ate Armey’s lunch this AM when they met on Meet the Press.