Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Hackville) — Part II

April 6, 2007

Yesterday, we talked about how unbelievably wrong Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was in attacking fired U.S. Attorney Carol Lam. Hatch insisted on national television that Lam 1) was lax on immigration cases; 2) was a law professor; 3) had no prosecutorial experience; and 4) was a top aide for one of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns. All four were completely wrong.

Reader A.M. alerted me to the fact that yesterday, Hatch kinda sorta apologized. Hatch wrote a letter to Tim Russert expressing regret for his error:

I would appreciate your help in correcting a mistake I made on your show last Sunday, April 1, 2007.

My comments about Carol Lam’s record as a U.S. Attorney were accurate, but I misspoke when making the point of discussing politically connected U.S. Attorneys. I accidentally used her name, instead of her predecessor, Alan Bersdin, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton.

It’s nice of Hatch to acknowledge a mistake, but his explanation is kind of silly. His comments about Lam’s record “were accurate”? Well, no, they clearly weren’t. It’s almost as if Hatch is saying, “I was right, except for the part that I wasn’t.” It’s like listening to an eight year old rationalize a lie.

But wait, it gets worse.

Josh Marshall tried to make sense of Hatch’s dissembling and ran into trouble.

The simple fact is that Hatch’s explanation makes no sense. He’s saying: In the course of attacking Carol Lam, I inadvertently used Lam’s name when describing facts that may or may not apply to, Alan Bersin, a guy Bill Clinton appointed to the same office back in the mid-1990s.

Does that make any sense at all? Of course not.

Now, just before starting this post I was chatting with one of my colleagues here at TPM, trying to figure out what the hell Hatch’s whopper was all about. My take was that the pattern of facts is simply too ridiculous to be a lie in the narrow and specific sense of a knowing falsehood. I think it’s far more likely that this was something some talk radio hound or blogger either intentionally or inadvertently mixed up. Hatch heard it and since he just ad libs through this scandal without having any idea what he’s talking about he just decided to repeat it even though it’s transparently ridiculous on its face.

Think about it: different presidents are more or less political in their US Attorney appointments. But no president appoints someone who’s served as a campaign manager for a key political opponent. And certainly not this president.

The whole episode is just another example of Hatch’s complete indifference to acquainting himself with even the most basic facts of the US Attorney Purge story. On the whole saga, he doesn’t even rise to the level of being a hack. He’s simply a joke.

Yep. And he always has been.

Over at TPM, Josh has a contributor – a lawyer – who points out that Hatch has been very crafty here, like a good trial lawyer, in “muddying the water” with his “statement” and his”apology,” which the truth will now have to continually fight as the other side will continue to bring it up as the “truth.”

Further proof, if proof was necessary, that “the only ‘good Republicans’ are pushing up daisies.”

  • I can’t imagine how anyone could possibly believe that the hyper-partisan Bushies would appoint a Clinton campaign manager to anything – shame on Russert for not calling Hatch on it when he said it in the first place.

  • I mentioned this yesterday, but I guess it is worth saying again. Over at ObWi, hilzoy throws out a pretty convincing suggestion as to where this all comes from.

    Basically, a few days before Hatch went on Meet the Press, Byron York wrote an article called “What Really Happened in the U.S. Attorney Mess” which includes this paragraph:

    “It wasn’t an easy job; the position of U.S. attorney for the Southern District had been wracked by politics in the previous decade. In 1993, Bill Clinton replaced the Republican U.S. attorney, a career prosecutor and veteran of 20 years in the Justice Department, with Alan Bersin, a law professor who had no prosecutorial experience but who had been a classmate of Clinton’s at Yale and head of the Clinton campaign in San Diego. (Bersin pledged to vigorously pursue Clinton priorities like environmental law.) In March 1998, Bersin resigned to become head of the San Diego school system. ”

    Limbaugh used it as background research and Hatch appears to have done likewise. Obviously, both misread it pretty badly and didn’t even think about how ridiculous what they were saying was. So yes, he is an idiot who isn’t paying attention to his words. However, I think that the whole mess does at least appear to be unintentionally deceptive. That said, the last 6 years have taught me that saying someone is an idiot instead of a crook doesn’t really change the facts on the ground for those of us that have to deal with their messes.

  • No, you got it all wrong. Hatch didn’t get his “facts” from wacko talk radio. They were delivered to him on a golden plate brought by the Angel Moroni (mu-ROE-nigh), along with the “peep stones” (Urim and Thummim – OO-rim, THOO-mim) needed for translation. Ya see …. oh, I forgot, you can’t see because you’re not among the saved, and that’s a shame because you’ll never get to don Mormon underwear.

  • No. It wasn’t a mistake. This is completely intentional. This is how they keep their base armed with “facts” to refute absolutely everything. They throw out these fake “facts” to muddy the waters. When the “facts” are debunked, either there is no correction (how often does Fox retract anything?), or the wingnuts dismiss the correction as more “liberal media” lies. They are well-trained.

    For me personally, this is illustrated by my wife’s grandfather who still sends me emails about how Bill Clinton personally lobbied the Israelis to release Mohammad Atta from prison and therefore 9/11 is his fault. The old man has a pile of these zombie “facts” to refute anything I can possibly say. They are carefully crafted to support his warped world view so he wont ever reject them when confronted with evidence. And now I get to hear about how Lam was Clinton’s campaign manager until the end of time. Hatch’s comments were “accurate”, he’ll say.

    How can anyone possibly believe this is an “accident” or carelessness when we are swimming in a media cesspool of outright lies? There are at least ten lies for every truth. They do this with every single subject.

  • No. It wasn’t a mistake. This is completely intentional. This is how they keep their base armed with “facts” to refute absolutely everything. They throw out these fake “facts” to muddy the waters. When the “facts” are debunked, either there is no correction (how often does Fox retract anything?), or the wingnuts dismiss the correction as more “liberal media” lies. They are well-trained.

    Not to say that they are thinking this far along, but consider…The base armed with the “facts”, discusses politics with a more liberal family member/co-worker/bar patron. The liberal never gets to argue their points because each response is spent correcting the inaccuracies the base thinks are irrefutable facts. After awhile, the liberal throws up his hands, “I can’t talk to you about politics, you don’t even have the basic facts right.” The liberal walks away, and the base continues to think he is right and liberals are too pigheaded to listen.

  • You’ve absolutely got that right, Chief Angry Cloud, and Tom @1 — but what is to do about it? Is it all just a game?
    Dwelling on this, my conclusion to date is that there is very little we, the truth-committed lot, can do to counteract such venality. The waters are muddied as far as the non-curious susceptible masses are concerned, but the truth is still true and the facts are still facts. Maybe we shouldn’t lose sleep over these tidal waves of perversity because they don’t alter the facts as far as the investigative process is concerned, and that’s where the crunch is going to come.
    The great thing about this current epoch in the vicissitudes of American politics is that a stern competent Constitutionally valid investigative process is underway, finally, on multiple fronts through the guidance of shrewed, mature, highly experienced lawmakers. This is the saving grace and blessed opportunity of the current situation. Those attentive, committed and involved need not be unduly distracted or troubled by the antics of clever clowns like Hatch.

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