Leninist party politics alive and well in Republican Party

Dan Froomkin calls attention to a Newsweek story with this passage:

"Rep. Tom Tancredo was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on his way to the Capitol one Friday morning in April 2002 when his cell phone rang. Though the caller ID read unidentified, Tancredo had no trouble recognizing the voice on the other end of the line: it was White House adviser Karl Rove, and he was seething.

"The congressman had been quoted in that morning's Washington Times attacking George W. Bush's immigration plan, which he warned could be an 'open door' for illegal immigrants and a national-security risk. As Tancredo remembers it, Rove screamed at him for more than 20 minutes, accusing him of disloyalty to his party and the president in the wake of 9/11. The conversation grew so heated that Tancredo had to pull over. As the congressman recalls, Rove ended the call with a warning that Tancredo should 'never darken the steps of the White House again.' (The White House disputes Rove's comment.)

And of course we shouldn't forget the Arlen Specter fiasco, in which his expected chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee was threatened for what he described as daring to acknowledge that 60 votes are needed to end debate in the Senate and confirm a judicial nominee.