re: #6 KingKenrod

The Republican Study Committee, made up of over 100 GOP House members, called it “Chicago-style shakedown politics” before Barton was stupid enough to frame it as an apology while everyone was watching.

[Link: tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com…]

I’d say that’s what caused the tongue-lashing from the leadership, not the framing of the escrow account as a “shakedown,” but the apology. If he’d stopped at calling it a “shakedown,” they’d have quietly agreed that that’s the way the party viewed it and not demanded he “apologize” for his apology.

The apology was the “Oh shit!” moment for the leadership, and now that he’s “apologized” for it, they want to continue full-steam ahead with the ODS. The sad part is that, should they reap huge rewards in November, they will attribute them not to anti-incumbent sentiment that strikes the voters in every mid-term, but to the Tea Partiers and like-minded loons.