That was the headline this morning on CNN.com: “GOP presses Dems on [tag]Foley[/tag].” I assumed, naively, that CNN had simply erred, like their colleagues who had identified Mark Foley as a Democrat.
Alas, it was no mistake. Congressional Republicans, in the kind of move only they would try to make, are trying to turn the tables on the scandal.
Faced with fending off the backlash from the Mark Foley scandal, House Republicans took the offensive Friday, asking Minority Leader Nancy [tag]Pelosi[/tag] and other Democrats to testify about whether they engaged in partisan trickery by releasing Foley’s messages weeks before the midterm elections. […]
In a letter to Pelosi, which also was sent to Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, Rep. Jack [tag]Kingston[/tag], R-Georgia, asked them to disclose whether Democrats played a role in publicizing Foley’s correspondences.
“Just as it must be determined whether any Republican members or political operatives were aware of and attempted to conceal Mr. Foley’s activities, it must also be determined whether any Democrat members or political operatives were aware of and attempted to conceal these same activities,” Kingston wrote in a letter signed by 10 other GOP lawmakers.
(You’ll notice that these clowns are always on message, using the grammatically incorrect “Democrat members,” even in official correspondence.)
You can tell a lot about a person by how he or she reacts when their backs are up against a wall. House Republicans, demonstrating the kind of class and decency for which they are famous, are faced with a political crisis of sorts, and have decided that making up obvious nonsense is the key to their survival. It’d be amusing if it weren’t so transparently pathetic.
We already know the Dems weren’t responsible for uncovering this story. Brian Ross has said it, his producer has said it, and The Hill made it abundantly clear.
The source who in July gave news media Rep. Mark Foley’s (R-Fla.) suspect e-mails to a former House page says the documents came to him from a House GOP aide.
That aide has been a registered Republican since becoming eligible to vote, said the source, who showed The Hill public records supporting his claim.
The same source, who acted as an intermediary between the aide-turned-whistleblower and several news outlets, says the person who shared the documents is no longer employed in the House. But the whistleblower was a paid GOP staffer when the documents were first given to the media.
And yet, there are House GOP lawmakers, taking to the airwaves — unchallenged — with breathtakingly dumb arguments about putting Democratic leaders under oath to answer questions about a scandal that exclusively involves Republicans.
We’re way past shameless here. There’s simply no reason for the media to allow the record to be distorted so blatantly.
We’re all a bit annoyed that reporters are unwilling to call a lie a lie, but there’s something even worse going on. I’ve found that reporters are unwilling to believe that they’re being lied to, based on an odd belief that their power to fuck over the person who lied to them insulates them from things. There’s such a strong presumption of innocence based on their own perceived power. Which they never use. It’s weird.
The odd sight of b-list Republicans fanning out to suggest that what this scandal is really all about is What Nancy Pelosi Knew And When She Knew it is somewhat entertaining, but it’s really time for the press corps to not put up with this game.
Josh Marshall added:
On CNN and in the Washington Post yesterday, reporters duly noted that the Republicans who are parroting this argument [that the scandal is a Democrat election gambit] do so with no evidence and that there’s no evidence to back it up.
But this is insufficient.
Every news organization that is aggressively reporting this story knows in basic outlines who the ultimate sources of these IMs were and how they made their way into the hands of the media. So they know not only that there is ‘no evidence’ for the GOP line but that it is actually false. Given that the Republicans who are spouting this line make no effort even to offer evidence, I think it is a fair conclusion that not only is the claim false but that these professional bamboozlers like Gingrich know it’s false.
In other words, they’re lying. And the news organizations publishing what they say know they’re lying. Saying there’s ‘no evidence’ doesn’t cut.
Republicans feel as if they have no choice but to lie, blatantly, with a straight face, to the nation. They do so because they expect news outlets to let them get away with it.
Is it any wonder our political discourse functions about as well as … well, a Republican-led federal government?