Matt Gunterman October 16th, 2007

Yes. That’s their story. In an excellent piece from James R. Carroll in today’s Courier-Journal, we discover that Sen. Mitch McConnell’s spokesman Don Stewart wasn’t, by his own reckoning, inventing smears on 12 y.o. Graeme Frost and his family; rather, Stewart was only spending his workday–and your tax dollars–informing journalists and reporters about what lies right-wing bloggers were spreading about the Frost family so that the information could be properly considered.

Right.

McConnell aide shared blog tips
Challenge to boy later recanted

By James R. Carroll

WASHINGTON — 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.

[...]

McConnell’s alleged role in depicting the Frosts as something other than what they claimed to be has been fodder for The New York Times op-ed page, bloggers and Democratic officeholders, among others.

Stewart’s comments were the first detailed explanation of the role McConnell’s office played in the controversy.

Matthew Miller, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in an e-mail yesterday that “spreading false rumors about a 12-year-old boy is despicable for any reason.”

“No matter how McConnell’s office spins it now, the e-mail makes clear that they were part of the campaign to smear a child who had the nerve to stand up and say children’s health insurance shouldn’t be cut,” Miller said.

McConnell is opposed to bipartisan legislation that passed the House and Senate to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, intended to assist those unable to afford private health insurance. President Bush vetoed the bill and awaits a House attempt this week to override his veto.

[...]

A week ago yesterday, Stewart said, he sent an e-mail to reporters covering the insurance issue, alerting them that “bloggers have done a little digging and turned up that the Dad owns his own business (and the building it’s in), seems to have some commercial rental income and Graeme and a sister go to a private school that, according to its Web site, costs about $20k a year — for each kid — despite the news profiles reporting a family income of only $45k for the Frosts.”

“Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?” Stewart asked in the e-mail.

He explained yesterday that such e-mails are “part of regular conversation with reporters.”

[...]

Stewart said McConnell did not know about any of his e-mails until he told the senator about them sometime around last Thursday.

“He saw that I spiked the story, I showed him that, and he doesn’t want it getting in the way of passing” a child insurance bill, Stewart said.

But the Democrats’ Miller said McConnell “stooped to smearing a child that disagreed with him.” Miller said, “That’s not politics as usual, it’s the politics of personal destruction, and it doesn’t befit a United States senator.”

Columnists and bloggers, left and right, have continued to write about the Frosts and the e-mail controversy.

Conservative Michelle Malkin wrote in a column last Wednesday that “the desperate Dems will shamelessly invoke the Absolute Moral Authority kiddie card to attack their critics for ‘attacking the children.’ ”

The same day Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty wrote that Graeme had been “swift-boated.”

In a letter to the editor of The Courier-Journal today, Stewart states that while there is no reason to question the Frosts, “only left-wing columnists and bloggers and others who seek political advantage seem to still be interested.”

• Graeme Frost , Mitch McConnell , SCHIP
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