Blunt and Boehner: Heads of the Five Families
You can’t make this stuff up. From the Hill:
It’s never in a lobbyist’s best interest to feel the least bit alienated from his own party on Capitol Hill or K Street. So when the dust settled after Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) won a come-from-behind victory in a bruising race for majority leader against Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) early this month, the extended K Street families of the two contenders sat down at Charlie Palmer Steak near the Capitol to break bread and mend fences over dinner Feb. 15.
This demands comparison, of course, with the dinner meeting of the heads of the five families in Godfather 1. Just like the GOP leaders and their lobbyist allies needed to come together to mend fences after a bloody leadership battle, the dons had to come together to mend fences after going to the mattresses in the wake of Michael’s assassination of Sollozzo and Capt. McClusky. Corleone demanded the meeting after his eldest son, Santino, was assassinated (related link).
Here’s how one GOP operative described the Boehner-Blunt meeting:
“[Boehner] has made it very clear that everyone needs to bury the hatchet and move on, unified as a team…The work ahead is more important than the campaign.”
Sounds like:
“How did things ever get so far? I don’t know. It was so unfortunate — so unnecessary. Tattaglia lost a son and I lost a son. We’re quits. And if Tattaglia agrees, then I’m willing to let things go on the way they were before.”
Unfortunately, there was no Corleone-like voice of reason in the meeting saying anything like this:
“When — when did I ever refuse an accommodation? All of you know me here. When did I ever refuse except one time? And why? Because I believe this [lobbying] business — is gonna destroy us in the years to come. I mean, it’s not like [gerrymandering] or [regressive taxation]– even women — which is something that most people want nowadays, and is ah forbidden to them by the pezzonovante of the Church. Even the [deep red states] that’ve helped us in the past with [gerrymandering] and other things are gonna refuse to help us when in comes to [lobbying]. And I believed that then and I believe that now.”
Choose your own adventure for the ending. We suggest going with either:
a. “Blunt is a pimp. He never could have outfought Boehner. But it wasn ‘t until this day that I knew it was DeLay all along.”
OR
b. “But I’m a superstitious man and if some unlucky accident should befall him — if he should get indicted on trumped up corruption charges or if he should fall victim to the Rove political machine or if he’s struck by a bolt of lightning, then I’m going to blame some of the people in this room. And that, I do not forgive. But that aside, let me say that I swear — on the souls of my grandchildren — that I will not be the one to break the peace that we have made here today.”