Joe Sonka October 17th, 2007

(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)

How’s this for a headline and subtitle:

McConnell knew of emails about boy

TV interview included denial

James Carroll follows up on the story that is now spreading like wildfire throughout the internet. Mitch McConnell knowingly LIED to Mark Herbert last Friday when asked if anyone on his staff was sending the Frost lies to reporters.

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell knew last week — at a time when he was denying it — that his staff had sent e-mails encouraging reporters to look into the background of a 12-year-old boy used by Democrats to support expansion of a health-care program.

In an interview Friday with WHAS-TV reporter Mark Hebert, the Kentucky Republican said his staff had not been involved in trying to push reporters to look into the financial situation of the boy’s family.

But McConnell’s communications director, Don Stewart, said in an interview Monday with The Courier-Journal that he had told McConnell about the Oct. 8 e-mails sometime around Thursday, the day before the interview with Hebert.

Stewart also said, however, that he had told the senator he had sent follow-up e-mails within a matter of hours warning reporters off of the story because “the family is legit.”

McConnell declined to comment on the matter last night.

Declined comment? Why don’t you just go ahead and lie again like you did Friday to Mark Herbert? Don’t tell me you’ve grown a sense of decency over the weekend, Mitch?

This story is NOT going away, no matter how much McConnell and Stewart try to spin, lie and deceive. The only possible way out of this clusterfuck is for Stewart to resign and McConnell to publicly apologize for lying to Herbert and his constituents. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

• Frostgate , Graeme Frost , Mitch McConnell , SCHIP
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Joe Sonka October 16th, 2007

(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)

Page One has the video up from WHAS’s 5:00 news, and what do we see?

We see Senator Mitch McConnell blatantly, 100% LYING to his KY constituents and the American people.

Take a good look at your Senator, Kentuckians. This is a man that will look right into your eyes and LIE to you.

(and Mitch…. you don’t punk Mark Herbert!)

• Don Stewart , Graeme Frost , Mitch McConnell , SCHIP
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Joe Sonka October 16th, 2007

(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)

WHAS has responded to Mitch McConnell’s blatant lie on Friday, as he told Mark Herbert that no one in his office spread the false smear on 12-yr old Graeme Frost’s family. Expect much more from this on Mark Herbert’s 5:00 report.

Did McConnell mislead public?

01:48 PM EDT on Tuesday, October 16, 2007

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — It appears Senator Mitch McConnell may have misled WHAS11 News when he told us nobody on his staff had anything to do with an effort to dig into the background of a 12-year-old boy.
An aide to McConnell has admitted he sent an e-mail to Washington reporters, urging them to look into Graeme Frost, the boy who urged Congress to override the president’s veto of an expanded child health care bill. He’s been a target of conservative bloggers ever since.

McConnell’s aide, Don Stewart, says he told the senator about his role in the controversy on Thursday.

WHAS11’s Mark Hebert asked the senator about it on Friday.

“There was no involvement,” McConnell said. “None.”

Stewart says there was no effort to slime the 12-year-old, as Democrats allege.

McConnell’s aide says he sent a follow up e-mail to reporters, telling them “there was no story.”

• Graeme Frost , Mitch McConnell , SCHIP
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Matt Gunterman October 16th, 2007

Congratulations to Joe Sonka of BlueGrassRoots and also Team DitchMitchKY. His breakdown of Don Stewart’s lie-filled letter to the editor in today’s Courier-Journal got commended over at ThinkProgress.

Yep, it’s the scandal that keeps on giving.

Like McConnell protégé J. Scott Jennings, who recently resigned in scandal-plagued disgrace from what was Karl Rove’s office, Don Stewart was weaned at Sen. Mitch McConnell’s teet of political corruption.

There is no honor among these, however, and one has to ask how long it will be before McConnell throws Stewart under the bus. It seems to be a favored strategy of prominent Republicans these days.

From ThinkProgress:

McConnell Aide Admits He Pushed Baseless Smears, But Lies About His Supposed ‘Skepticism’

Last week, ThinkProgress reported that Don Stewart, the communications director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), had sent an e-mail to reporters encouraging them to cover the right-wing campaign to smear 12-year old Graeme Frost and his family. In the e-mail, Stewart claimed that research by conservative bloggers proved that Democrats did a bad job “vetting this family.”

Stewart acknowledged yesterday in an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal that he “pointed out” the smear campaign to reporters. Stewart comically asserts that he “raised skepticism as to the content” of the right-wing bloggers’ research:

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

“I pointed out something that had been in the blogs for a couple of days and had been of increasing interest, but I also raised skepticism as to the content,” Stewart said.

Though Stewart did eventually send subsequent e-mails to reporters, telling them “there’s no story there” and that “the family is legit,” his initial e-mail was anything but skeptical. In fact, he trumpeted the bloggers’ unfounded smears and used them to attack Democrats:

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 website, 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?

The only “skepticism” Stewart showed in his original email was a veiled partisan attack that came in the form of a question. He never “vetted” the research he was propagating to reporters.

As Greg Sargent notes, “when Michelle Malkin pointed her finger at the Frosts and started howling, McConnell’s staff immediately joined in the fun — that is, until they realized that they had a big dud on their hands.”

UPDATE: Stewart also wrote a letter to the editor today further muddling his role in smearing of the Frost family. BluegrassRoots debunks it here.

• Graeme Frost , Mitch McConnell , SCHIP
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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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Matt Gunterman October 13th, 2007

It’s the scandal that keeps on giving.

From the blog WHAS’s Mark Hebert:

McConnell On……..

Here are some quotes from U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell today on Al Gore, Fletcher and allegations that one of his aides prompted the GOP’s criticism of a 12-year-old boy.

[...]

On allegations that one of his aides e-mailed reporters encouraging them to check the background of 12-year-old Graeme Frost, the kid who gave the democratic radio response to President Bush last weekend (see earlier post): McConnell gave a curt “no” to most questions I asked about his staffer’s link to the story finally adding “there was no involvement whatsoever.
Q: From your staff?
A: None “

UPDATE: ThinkProgress has more coverage. It seems the White House is now endorsing and, indeed, embracing the smear campaign against Graeme Frost and family:

White House Embraces Right-Wing Blog That Called For ‘Destroying’ Graeme Frost

Much of the far right’s smear campaign against 12-year old SCHIP recipient Graeme Frost was driven by the right-wing blogosphere. One blog in particular, Redstate, featured especially vitriolic comments. A poster there wrote of the Frost family:

If federal funds were required [they] could die for all I care. Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities. […]

I would hire a team of PIs and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. Then I’d do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info.

Rather than distancing themselves from the smear campaign, the White House today decided to embrace RedState and reward the blog with an official White House posting.

In a post entitled “Democrats’ SCHIP Budget Gimmick,” Nicholas Thompson, a staffer in the White House’s Office of Strategic Intiatives, rallied the conservative troops around Bush’s hard-line stance, reminding them that “we are less than one week” from Congress’ veto override vote.

[...]

UPDATE: According to RedState, the poster who smeared Graeme was actually a respected voice in the right-wing blog. “As it turns out, it was the well-known contributor mbecker who posted that now famous comment.”

• Graeme Frost , Mitch McConnell , SCHIP
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