GOP LIMBO: HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?
How low can the GOP go in sliming the loyal opposition? As low as you like, apparently. Here's a smear from upstate New York.
As the right-wing Human Events magazine reports it (while hanging themselves in the telling):
"Democrat congressional candidate Mike Arcuri, while serving as district attorney of Oneida County, N.Y., has billed taxpayers for several questionable expenses, including a call to a phone-sex hotline, according to records obtained by HumanEvents.com."
After pointing to a URL providing audio of the sexy greeting on that sex line, the author goes on:
"(This afternoon, after this story was posted, I was informed that the number in question, 800-457-8462, was accidentally dialed instead of 518-457-8462. The latter number is for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. However, this new information raises questions about why Arcuri dialed his calling card, 800-255-2255, just one minute after hanging up on the phone sex hotline, as his hotel bill indicates. The campaign has still not returned my calls seeking an explanation.)"
Here's how the Associated Press reported on the matter (emphasis mine):
But Arcuri's campaign released records showing the call two years ago from his New York City hotel room to the 800-number sex line was followed the next minute by a call to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. The last seven digits of the two numbers are the same. Arcuri, the district attorney in Oneida County, said the ad was "clearly libelous" and threatened to file a lawsuit. His GOP opponent, state Sen. Ray Meier, described it as "way over the line." At least seven television stations in Syracuse, Utica and Binghamton refused to run the ad, Arcuri said. The ad's sponsor, the National Republican Congressional Committee, stood by the 30-second message. Spokesman Ed Patru insisted it was "totally true" and said Meier was not consulted.
No doubt, the GOP just wants to make voters aware of the possibility that their opponent is, well, human, so that they can then trumpet his supposedly imperfect morals in supposedly misusing public funds. Except, of course, that even in the most unforgiving analysis, there's no evidence, even circumstantial, that he did. Just innuendo and supposition.
Beyond that, how, exactly did Human Events, a conservative publication, come to have a Democrat's phone records, including records of calls from a hotel? Clearly, the GOP and/or Human Events went back through YEARS of public documents concerning Arcuri, checking every little itty bitty fact on every scrap of paper including expense accounts for any possible appearance of blight.
In effect: They audited his life.
It's really chilling. If you run against them, your past had best be squeaky clean; unlike, of course, the pasts of a growing number of Republicans.
On one level this isn't new; it's the same old use of private detectives on fat retainers in service to opposition research. But increasingly these tactics smack of illegality and invasion of privacy.
This case is in fact reminiscent of another, not dissimilar case developing in Colorado. As per the Denver Post (I've slightly edited this excerpt for context's sake):
"Republican Bob Beauprez, already struggling in the polls, spent much of last week responding to allegations and questions about how his campaign got information for an ad attacking Democrat Bill Ritter's record as Denver district attorney. It says Ritter reached a plea bargain that freed an illegal immigrant who went on to commit a sex crime in California. The man used aliases, and Ritter's campaign alleged the only way to link the two was through a restricted law enforcement database. Cory Voorhis, a veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, has been identified as a target of the probe by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into whether someone violated the law by using the database for non-law-enforcement purposes... ."
In short, the GOP will go to any lengths to smear Democrats and progressives, including breaking the law.
Then again, we've known that ever since Watergate.
That Voorhis business is some dirty pool. I wonder how many times it happens and we don't hear about it.
October 22, 2006 11:58 PM | Reply | Permalink