Was A McConnell Staffer Behind The Campaign To Smear The 12-Yr Old SCHIP Recipient?

[rodeodance]

http://thinkprogress.org/?tag=Ethics

Was A McConnell Staffer Behind The Campaign To Smear The 12-Yr Old SCHIP Recipient?


The right wing’s attack on Graeme Frost, a 12-year old recipient of SCHIP, is now attracting attention from a number of traditional media outlets. “I think it’s really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said.

Mounting evidence suggests that the right-wing smear campaign may have been orchestrated by a staffer in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) office.

First, ABC News reported earlier this week that a staffer in Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) office received an email that was not intended for him. The email from a “Senate Republican leadership aide” showed the minority leader’s office was intently tracking the smear campaign well before it had gained widespread attention:

...............

Manley cited an e-mail sent to reporters by a Senate Republican leadership aide, summing up recent blog traffic about the boy’s family. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declined to comment on Manley’s charge that GOP aides were complicit in spreading disparaging information about Frosts.

[rodeodance]

1. Capitol Feud: A 12-Year-Old Is the Fodder (NYTimes)

October 10, 2007
Political Memo
Capitol Feud: A 12-Year-Old Is the Fodder
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/washington/10memo.html?_r=2&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — There have been moments when the fight between Congressional Democrats and President Bush over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program seemed to devolve into a shouting match about who loves children more.

So when Democrats enlisted 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who along with a younger sister relied on the program for treatment of severe brain injuries suffered in a car crash, to give the response to Mr. Bush’s weekly radio address on Sept. 29, Republican opponents quickly accused them of exploiting the boy to score political points.

Then, they wasted little time in going after him to score their own.

In recent days, Graeme and his family have been attacked by conservative bloggers and other critics of the Democrats’ plan to expand the insurance program, known as S-chip. They scrutinized the family’s income and assets — even alleged the counters in their kitchen to be granite — and declared that the Frosts did not seem needy enough for government benefits.

[napi21]

2. I heard that reported on several different programs today, and it

sure sounds like their MO!

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Their usual MO would have been to somehow provide the boy

for the commercial knowing he was a fraud & later discredit him. This was only a half hearted smear at best, hardly the work of rove.