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Blunt Force

By Zuzanna Kobrzynski
Posted Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005, at 7:37 PM ET

Bloggers are quickly on the case of interim House Majority Leader Roy Blunt; they also chime in on Gov. George Pataki's decision to oust the International Freedom Center from the future World Trade Center site and marvel at a photo of an Architeuthis.

Blunt force: Texas Rep. Tom DeLay gave up his leadership position yesterday after being indicted for conspiracy. Early buzz favored California Rep. David Dreier as his temporary replacement, but Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt emerged from the GOP caucus meeting as the victor. Dreier and Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor will share some of DeLay's duties.

Guest-blogging on Beyond DeLay, which lists Blunt as one of the "13 most corrupt members of Congress," Missourian Roy Temple thinks that DeLay and Blunt are two ethically challenged peas in a pod: "Roy Blunt has always been a protege of Majority Leader Tom DeLay," he writes. "Their ties run deep and they share the same ethical standards." On hearing the news that Blunt was one of the "13," Freda T. Robinson posting on the conservative New Leadership Blog is keeping her fingers crossed that "we haven't traded one leader with problems with another." Still she fears that she is "witnessing [the] Republican party literally imploding before my very eyes." For Michael Crowley, guest-blogging at Talking Points Memo, Blunt's cozy relationship with lobbyists (his wife and son shill on behalf of Philip Morris) illuminates "the nexis between leading House Republicans and corporate lobbyists. It's also an example of the increasingly undemocratic way the House operates under the current GOP leadership." Blunt's alleged ethical lapses won't cause bleeding heart Bill at Boggles, Bungles, and Greed to lose much sleep: "These people are so rotten, this stuff doesn't even surprise me any more." Mike Magner, blogging on the nonpartisan Public Education Center site Stories that Matter, writes that Blunt, like his predecessor, "is no environmentalist either. DeLay and Blunt both received zero ratings on the most recent League of Conservation Voters."

Marc Perkel, who says he's registered to both parties and purportedly challenged Roy Blunt for his House seat in 1998, is hopeful if not supportive. "Over the past years since the GOP took control government spending has been out of control with the government now spying on everything we do…It is my hope that Roy Blunt will take the GOP in a different direction than self annihilation and earn his place in history as the guy who turned things around."

Read more about Roy Blunt's alleged ethical lapses, gathered by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, here. Read more blog posts here.

No Freedom Center: Bowing to pressure from families of Sept. 11 victims, New York Gov. George Pataki announced that the International Freedom Center would not find a home at the new World Trade Center site, citing "too much opposition, too much controversy." Families had complained that the center would take away from memorials to the victims and could be overrun by political correctness.

Liberal news reviewer Steve, posting on The News Blog, writes, "This is just another indication of the mangling of the WTC development and another case where Mike Bloomberg simply has nothing to say. He should be pissed at this crap. But remains silent." Over at the National Review's The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez assess Pataki's role in a bit more positively, albeit begrudgingly. "I rarely say these words, but: 'Nice work, George Pataki!'" What gets Michelle Malkin annoyed is "that it took Hillary Clinton's announced opposition to the IFC before Rudy Giuliani and Gov Pataki finally drove the final (we hope) nail into the Ground Zero guilt complex. But better late than never." GOP Blogger Mark Noonan is glad to see that the site won't be co-opted by gang of "internationalist nitwits" and their anti-American harangues because "9/11 was a unique event - a day [of] terror, but also a day of sublime courage and national resolution. It is our day, and the memorial belongs to us." Anti-Bush Londoner Recidivist suggests that "truth wouldn't be very flattering to the ego of the country that is the world's single most corrupted, dishonest, self-centred, hypocritical and destructive force working against the real concept of freedom."

Read more about the issue here.

Look out! Squid! A team of Japanese scientists has captured on film, for the first time, an Architeuthis (giant squid) measuring in at 8 meters long. These creatures have a reputation of being lethargic, but according to one of the researchers, "the squid we captured on film actively used its enormous tentacles to go after prey."

Gaming enthusiast Andy Bartlett takes a moment to bask in the awesomeness of nature. Despite all the technological advances human beings have made, "right here under our feet the ocean remains a colossal unsolved mystery." Generation X cynic LarryJP at Gaily Forward savors sweet, sweet vindication, since he's known all along "that Architeuthis could, in fact, attack our cruise ship and drag all the slack-jawed yokels shoving for a place in line to snatch up handfuls of crab cakes and last night's tiramisu to a nightmarish yet remarkably satisfying watery grave. ... "

Read more about the squid here. Click here for Slate's "Explainer" on why the creature's so bashful.

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Zuzanna Kobrzynski is Slate's executive assistant.
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