Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Hackville)

April 5, 2007

The prosecutor purge scandal has offered an opportunity of sorts to congressional Republicans. Are they going to be serious lawmakers, concerned about accountability, or are they partisan hacks, unconcerned about the administration’s scandals? Some have been up to the challenge — many GOP lawmakers have called for Alberto Gonzales’ resignation, and during Kyle Sampson’s recent testimony, several Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee (most notably, Specter and Kyl) asked pointed questions.

Then there’s Sen. [tag]Orrin Hatch[/tag] (R-Utah).

When Gonzales’ lies became more obvious, Hatch vouched for Gonzales’ veracity. When evidence of conflicting Justice Department stories became overwhelming, Hatch said he had not yet seen “clear evidence.” When senators were exploring why the U.S. Attorneys were fired, Hatch insisted that the positive performance evaluations for the US Attorney that people have been referring to were purely statistical in nature — a claim that is clearly false.

But on Meet the Press a few days ago, Hatch buried the needle on the hack-o-meter with this attack on Carol Lam, fired in San Diego in the midst of a corruption investigation.

“Take Carol Lam, for instance. Carol Lam was raised on your program, Tim, by Schumer. Carol Lam, it’s amazing to me she wasn’t fired earlier because for three years members of the Congress had complained that there had been all kinds of border patrol capture of these people but hardly any prosecutions. She was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton, and they’re trying to say that this administration appoints people politically?”

How badly was Hatch lying? Let us count the ways.

1. Lam was lax on immigration cases? No, she wasn’t. The Justice Department never asked or encouraged Lam to increase immigration prosecutions, and officials came up with this as a rationalization for her dismissal after the fact.

2. Lam was a law professor? Not according to her bio.

3. Lam has no prosecutorial experience? Wrong again. She was a prosecutor for 15 years before becoming a U.S. Attorney.

4. Lam was the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton? No, Hatch seems to have made this up out of whole cloth.

Think about it; Hatch prepped to discuss this issue on Meet the Press. He wasn’t asked about Carol Lam; he brought her record up unprompted. And everything he said about her was untrue.

Josh Marshall said that this is “the kind of embarrassment Hatch should never live down.” I’d like to believe that, but Hatch has been embarrassing himself for years and doesn’t seem to mind.

Besides, does anyone really believe his on-air lies will prevent him from being invited back onto Meet the Press or any other shows? Of course not; that would introduce an element of accountability that doesn’t exist.

April 5, 2007 at 10:36 am

Someone pointed out (I think on ObWi) that the claims being made about Lam seem to all have been true of her predecessor and that it is possible there was a misreading along the way that was just never fact checked. Given that it fits the narrative being built by the GOP, I doubt it will be corrected, but at least that explains where the heck the mendacity originated.

Hatch’s electoral base believes in ‘magic’ golden plates, not that there is anything wrong with that. But if one can muster the will to really, really believe such things then they can probably be manipulated to believe most anything. And Hatch is therefore safe in his senate seat.

And one other: the Border Patrol official charged with working with Lam wrote her a letter lauding her performance in prosecuting border violations, and providing a detailed statistical breakdown to back it up. TPM, of course, has the details and the letter.

Doesn’t Hatch and the other Republican’ts think it odd that Bush would nominate a Clinton campaign manager to the post in 2002 ???

Are they really that stupid? It’s an obvious lie that doesn’t even make sense.

Orrin Hack was supposedly put on MTP because he was one of the few people of any stature who was willing to defend Gonzales on the air. But today’s media environment requires that they put such a lonely person on the air and let them lie their asses off. I hope they call him on this crap, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

BTW, the Hatch lies about Lam are located here in the MTP transcript:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17857501/page/3/

“…Hatch has been embarrassing himself for years and doesn’t seem to mind.”
This is inaccurate. Sen. Hatch is incapable of feeling embarrassment.

Hatch served the Party.
So Hatch told the Truth.

There’s a reason why Trotsky named the paper “Pravda”.

Isn’t this just a condemnation of how useless the MSM is, far more than (just) another piece of excrement from the Honorable Member?

Apparently Rush Limbaugh is running with Hatch’s lies:

“Orrin Hatch, on fire here, is talking about Carol Lam, who was a Clinton hack…”

“…Carol Lam was a campaign manager! These people would normally be made ambassadors, but Clinton put her in as a US attorney…”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_040207/content/01125115.html.guest.html

BTW, That link requires registration (which I will NEVER have) I copied the text from the Google results matches I found.

When a sitting United States Senator goes before a national audience and produces such a series of heinous lies—obviously for political purposes—is there any way that the Senator can be brought up on charges? Hatch needs to be driven from power the same way DeLay was driven from the House.

*Actually, he needs to be keel-hauled on a submarine—during a deep-water endurance dive—but I wouldn’t wish any submariner the feeling of “diving the boat with a bad Hatch….”

15 years as a prosecutor? Wow that’s 15 more than Goodling and Samspon put together (the “deciders” of DOJ.)

Someone is surprised byHatch? Anybody who can buy the “teachings” of his cult should have no trouble bending over and buying anything.

Backhanded Republican compliment to Romney in yesterday’s “Prickly City” cartoon. The coyote goes on about the serial adulterers, the distraight families, etc., etc., of GOP candidates, ending by saying “Republicans must be the party of family values, they have so many of them.” To which the little girl says “Yes, it’s surprising when the Mormon in the pack is the monogamist.”

Rumor has it that Hatch might be Gonzo’s replacement. He certainly seems to be doing his “loyalty” audition now.

That sucks, too. Because as a Senator, he will fly through confirmation, even though he’s obviously as bad a hack (and liar) as any of ’em.

The post concludes with “Besides, does anyone really believe his on-air lies will prevent him from being invited back onto Meet the Press or any other shows? Of course not; that would introduce an element of accountability that doesn’t exist.”

I have often thought that live political pundit TV should be banned, and that all programs should be fact checked before they are aired, perhaps with little VH1-style pop-ups appearing when the lies come out. Definitely not practical.

But how about the “moment of accountability,” in which the lies from guest’s previous appearance are recounted at the beginning of the show? Hatch’s next appearance on MTP would begin with a summary of the post above.

While on Meet the Press, Hatch also claimed that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. And that persistently phony, pompous paragon of NBC news, Tim Russert, never asked if the phone calls the New Mexico U.S. Attorney received from Senator Domenici and Congresswoman Wilson might have constituted such evidence. No wonder Republican officials love to go on Russert’s program; it’s as safe a haven for their propagandizing as they will find anywhere.

“Hatch has been embarrassing himself for years and doesn’t seem to mind.”

Nor do the Mor(m)ons who, ever since 1977, have routinely returned Orrin to the Federal trough.

Unfortunately for accountability Hatch is from the most solidly red state in the nation, so he can get away with this stuff with complete impunity.

I’m not going to bother looking it up, but:
1. Issa says he’d be complaining about Lam’s failure to prosecute smugglers for years.
2. I recall hearing negative comments about Lam and immigration months before she was fired.

I’m sure you could find her name mentioned in a negative sense months or years ago if you look through LN or a newspaper archive.

I’m not going to bother looking it up, but:

Well, neither am I.
1. People say lots of things…any proof?
2. I don’t recall that.

Invigorating.

“For years, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, has been making noise about pushing Lam to prosecute more cases of immigrant smuggling.”

nctimes.com/articles/2007/03/14/opinion/editorials/21_36_043_13_07.txt

“Issa said he is outraged that a person caught smuggling multiple times does not warrant prosecution. A U.S. citizen is more likely to be prosecuted for a lesser offense than the average immigrant smuggler, and a speeding ticket can result in heftier penalties than what many smugglers receive, he said.”

nbpc.net/news/archive/octdec2003/uphill.htm (December 2003)

More here:
tinyurl.com/3xoqt2
tinyurl.com/2bmnhp

Click my link to signify your admission that I was right.

meander, let me offer to co-develop a show and pitch it to either Comedy Central or MSNBC – Pop-Up Videos on say Tues or Wed of the highlights from the prior Sunday’s talking head shows! I just love that idea. (of course, in the day I was a Pop-Up Video addict, too.)

I agree with Steve @10. Hatch should be held accountable. There is no excuse for a sitting Senator to make a mistake of that magnitude. I hope Carol Lam slaps him with a slander suit or whatever she can hit him with and anyone else who continues to spread this garbage.

But I don’t think it was an honest mistake. I think it was done purposely knowing he won’t be called on it. He simply apologizes that it was a mistake, but by then the damage has been done and much of the public never hears the truth. It’s all on par with this administration. No one is held accountable for their actions. And the MSM is just as responsible becuase they let this stuff get out and do little to correct the record.

Btw, has there been any reaction from Lam?

I just sent an e-mail to Tim Russert asking whether he is going to address the lies Orin Hatch spewed on his show regarding Carol Lam.

It would be helpful if Tim was to receive a ton more e-mails requesting honesty in reporting.

I used the link posted by Racerx post #5.. it allows to send a comment. Makes it easier.

If it hadn’t been for the AF providing us with copies of the Book of Mormon during basic training, I wouldn’t have had any great comedy to read. I especially liked the “testimonies” about the gold plates. Those were a riot!

First of all, TLB, there’s nothing in that quote about Carol Lam, specifically. It sounds like Issa’s usual bitch and moan about immigration in general. And your “links” lead to two conservative opinion pieces. Sorry, but that doesn’t cut it.

So you still haven’t proved #1. And you still haven’t provided any confirmation about that #2 assertion.

As it is, prosecuting immigration/smuggling is important, but was Lam supposed to stand still and do nothing about corruption, if it was happening in her backyard, just to focus as aggressively on immigration as a few xenophobes wanted? A USA isn’t just about immigration. They have a lot of different kinds of cases they need to handle. They can’t focus on only a few kinds to the detriment of others.

Comments are closed.