Hatch (R-UT) under fire for stand on files leak | Salt Lake Tribune

[Ediacara]

Hatch under fire for stand on files leak


Orrin Hatch

By Christopher Smith
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON -- Two months after a "mortified" Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch announced his own staffer had helped perpetrate a cyber-theft of confidential Democratic plans to block President Bush's federal judge nominees, his forthright handling of the scandal has boomeranged.

Republican conservatives, normally his staunchest allies, are furious at Hatch for initiating a wide-ranging investigation that has allowed the focus of the scandal to shift to the leak, rather than the incriminating content of the electronic memos. Republican senators, conservatives and the Right's oracle, Rush Limbaugh, have questioned the Utah senator's dedication to the judicial confirmation crusade and suggested that his celebrated friendship with liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts -- one of the two Democrats on the committee whose private files were poached -- is coloring his judgment.

"We've got Republicans in the Senate who want to go along with the Democrats' push to suppress what's in those memos and instead try to punish some Republican staffer for computer theft," Limbaugh declared Jan. 29 on his radio talk show. "The reason the Republican senators want to do this is so the media won't get mad at them, so The New York Times won't write editorials about them and so Ted Kennedy will like them."

Hatch, no stranger to conservative flak on issues like his support of the Patriot Act and cloning human embryos for research, said Thursday that he is sticking to his guns.

More at the Salt Lake Tribune

[fizzana]

1. So it's okay to break the law if you're going after Democrats.

n/t

[zbdent]

4. Remeber the "practice debate tape"? Even though Gore didn't

view it, and neither did the person who received it (and returned it unveiwed), they were accused of "dirty tricks".

I wonder if some business that shared a server with a college would be so flippant about the fact that a college kid exploited a bug and stole all their clients' credit card numbers?

[pmbryant]

2. The GOP is enraged that one of their own has a shred of integrity left

Amazing! Kudos to Hatch.

--Peter

[Ediacara]

7. you're spot on Peter!

I'm not a big fan of Hatch, but he seems to be more upstanding than most Republicans (which granted isn't saying much...).

[no one in particular]

11. As the Republicans say...

Don't count your Hatch before he chickens.

[bleedingheart]

3. Okay Rush then lets see those private doctor's records on your

drug habit too!

If Rush is for open disclosure why not for himself???

[librechik]

10. yeah, isn't it more important to drool over the content

than to protect the "right of privacy" myth? oops, not for Republicans! Keep those crimes undercover, even if you have to break the law!

[KansDem]

5. Will wonders never cease?!

A Republican doing the right thing. Perhaps this will rub off on other Rupukes? Naaaah--not with Rush acting as their "oracle."

Rush Limbaugh, the GOPO: "Grand Ol' Party's Oracle"

(edited for grammar)

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Rush Limbaugh has no high moral ground to be calling for the use

of information that was illegally obtained. But I understand, once a law breaker, always a law breaker.

[Bandit]

8. Hatch getting a lesson in ethics from Rush ~ Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

What next Rove condemning Democrats for being political? God what a bunch.

[yellowcanine]

9. This is the crowd always whining about "moral relativity"?

Where is the moral absolute in saying it is ok to steal files if you can easily access them? Might as well say it is ok to
steal your neighbor's car if he starts it up on a cold morning and goes back into the house for a cup of coffee.