Smokin' A Blunt

Missouri Carolina Republican Representative Roy Blunt has a price: $150,000. Blunt tried to repay his benefactor, Philip Morris, for its campaign contributions by slipping Philip Morris's pet legislation into the "Homeland Security" bill:

Only hours after Rep. Roy Blunt was named to the House's third-highest leadership job in November, he surprised his fellow top Republicans by trying to quietly insert a provision benefiting Philip Morris USA into the 475-page bill creating a Department of Homeland Security, according to several people familiar with the effort.

...

The provision would have made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes, two practices that cut into Philip Morris's profits. Blunt has received large campaign donations from Philip Morris, his son works for the company in Missouri and the House member has a close personal relationship with a Washington lobbyist for the firm.

Blunt's tactics were so sleazy that even Tom "Rat Boy" DeLay was repulsed by the fact that he hadn't thought of them first.

Correction (6/11): Ras_Nesta has shown me the error of my ways. Smokin' Roy Blunt is from the Ashcroft State (Missouri), not North Carolina. My apologies to NC and sympathies to MO.