I would use wordpress, and use an iframe to the blog, if you want to discuss this further, i would do some free work for ya, i could strip down the wordpress admin backend, so all you need is what you want.
if you wish to discuss this further, email is
[email protected] and icq 704-299
email is best, if you send a list of features you want.
I normallly dont work for free, but for you sure.