Shortly after the right started its coordinated criticisms of 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family, there was some question about what role, if any, the Republican establishment had in the smear. It’s bad enough when Limbaugh, Malkin, and the National Review launch a campaign like this, but official, top-down support makes matters considerably worse.
Last week, after questions emerged about the role of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ken.) office in this fiasco, Malkin mocked the very idea. She said McConnell staffers were no more involved than CNN and that the suggestion itself is proof that the “unreality-based community really does live in a different galaxy.”
But as Greg Sargent notes today, a top McConnell aide has acknowledged his role in pushing the story to reporters.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spokesman acknowledged yesterday that he alerted reporters last week to questions bloggers raised about the financial circumstances of a 12-year-old boy Democrats had used to urge passage of an expanded children’s health insurance program.
Apparently, after urging reporters to pursue the Frost “controversy,” McConnell’s spokesperson, Don Stewart, realized he was pushing a bogus story, and he followed up with reporters: “I just heard from a blogger I know who did some research. Says it’s not a story, they’re the real deal.”
But as Greg explained, that doesn’t change the bottom line: “[T]he office of the top Republican in the U.S. Senate has now publicly admitted that it actively tried to get mainstream reporters to participate in the smearing of a 12-year-old and his family — before he even knew whether there was any truth to what the wingers were writing. Lovely.”
As it turns out, though, McConnell’s office wasn’t quite done.
Stewart, even after having been caught, issued a “clarification.”
[O]ur office did play a significant role in making sure the mainstream media knew there was nothing to the complaints against the Frost family. As I pointed out to reporters — more than a week ago — the family is “legit,” and there is “no story” there. Most reporters agree with my assessment, which is why only left-wing columnists and bloggers and others who seek political advantage seem to still be interested.
Look, this isn’t complicated. Stewart pushed a bogus smear about a struggling family without getting his facts straight. Then he realized that he’d screwed up. But in this “clarification,” he acknowledges the second part while pretending the first part doesn’t exist. That’s absurd.
He “played a significant role in making sure the mainstream media knew there was nothing to the complaints,” only after telling the mainstream media that there was something to the complaints.
As for why this matters, Greg summarized it nicely.
Mitch McConnell is the GOP Senate leader — a very powerful and high-profile post. Yet his office followed the lead of a whackjob like Michelle Malkin, suggesting to mainstream reporters that they go after the Frost family without bothering to check the facts first. His office only called reporters off the story after it became obvious that Malkin and company had laid a real stinker on McConnell’s desk — in other words, only after the potential for embarrassment loomed.
Let’s think about this in reverse. Say, a Daily Kos diarist went after a low-income family because they publicly endorsed a Republican policy initiative. The diarist was wrong, and posted criticisms that were bogus. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office, without checking for accuracy, started pushing the story to political reporters, urging them to go after the family, too.
What do you suppose the reaction would be? Wouldn’t this be proof of the Dems’ anti-family ways? Would Republicans ever stop talking about this?