October 03, 2006
Republicans Blame Dems For Foley E-Mail Leak
From today's CongressDaily PM:
Amid the controversy over whether Speaker Hastert and other Republican leaders did enough to address former GOP Rep. Mark Foley's e-mails to a former House page, Republicans have been conducting a behind-the-scenes campaign to redirect attention away from themselves. Within 24 hours of Foley's resignation, GOP aides and Republican political operatives began pushing a story that Brian Smoot -- who was Louisiana Rep. Rodney Alexander's chief of staff before the lawmaker switched parties to the GOP in 2004 -- might have been involved in leaking the e-mails to reporters. The GOP operatives have been making the argument to a host of reporters that the leaker, by sitting on the e-mails, acted in a way that could enrage voters. Alexander was the sponsor of the page who received e-mails from Foley described as "overly friendly."
Smoot is currently working as campaign manager for Democrat Ron Klein's bid to unseat GOP Rep. Clay Shaw in Florida's 22nd District. Shaw's district neighbors Foley's former 16th District. Smoot adamantly denied any connection to the e-mails or any other aspect of the Foley case. Smoot is painted by GOP operatives as a potentially disgruntled former aide of Alexander angry about his former boss' party switch who later went to work for Minority Leader Pelosi. When contacted, Smoot said while there is no love lost between Alexander and himself, he never worked for Pelosi and he only learned about the Foley matter from media reports. "I would be the last person to have any idea of what is going on in Alexander's office," said Smoot. "I had no idea about e-mails or ideas about this page and am absolutely not involved in this situation whatsoever. I also never worked for Pelosi nor have I ever worked for the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] or Democratic Party."
Even Hastert has alluded to the GOP's spin message, which has evolved since it first surfaced Saturday to involve the sexual instant messages Foley sent pages. "Anyone who had knowledge of these vile instant messages should have turned them over to authorities immediately so that kids could be protected," Hastert said in a statement Monday. "I repeat again, the Republican leaders of the House did not have them. We have all said so. On the record. But someone did have them. And the Ethics Committee, the Justice Department, the news media -- or anyone who can -- should help us find out who."
A Pelosi spokesman said the misdirection campaign the GOP leadership is attempting to pull off is a sign of their desperation. "Everyone in America is asking, 'What was done to protect these kids?' and Republicans are asking, 'Who else can we blame?'" said the spokesman. Democratic leadership is saying little publicly about Foley and is relying on Democratic lawmakers with reputations for being nonpartisan -- such as the Page Board member Rep. Dale Kildee of Michigan -- to speak out more forcefully on the issue while allowing the Foley mess to engulf Republican leaders. "We were happy where we were [politically] before this happened and now this," said one Democratic aide. [CHRISTIAN BOURGE]
Posted at 05:52 PM
Comments
From the beginning, the Republican leadership has treated this as a POLITICAL matter. They kept it away from the sole Democrat on the ethics committee. They instead took it to the POLITICAL arm of the party (the National Republican Congressional Committee) to see how to control it.
They MADE this a political issue rather than one of protecting congressional pages from one of their own.
A bit like Oscar Wilde's story of the man who kills both his parents and then begs for mercy from the court on the grounds that he is an orphan, the Republicans have only themselves to blame for this one.
Rick | 10.03.06 07:15 PM
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