MYDD: Clinton Unleashes Attack Dog Lehane

[illinoisprogressive]

One of the reasons complaints about blogger ethics are so stupid is that reporters and campaigns regularly speak in code that voters are not supposed to understand. It's like there are two languages in politics, one for the regular voter, and one for the elites. Chris Lehane's career is a perfect example. Now, we've criticized Carville for going on CNN and giving out pro-Clinton talking points as a generic Democratic analyst, and he hasn't really stopped. His excuse is that he's not being officially paid by the campaign, as if he wouldn't make millions and garner immense influence with another Clinton in the White House. Reporters 'get' that Carville isn't a generic analyst and see him through that lens, but viewers just see a trusted figure on CNN, and so they take away a different sense of the information they receive. Two different contexts, two different languages.

James Carville is the most high profile of these double-agents, but there are others. One very prominent Clinton surrogate is Chris Lehane, who ran negative campaigns for Gore in 2000 and ran the Clark campaign into the ground in 2004 (after resigning from the Kerry campaign), along with his partner Mark Fabiani. Lehane, though he doesn't officially work for Clinton, has a long relationship with the Clinton and their machine entourage, even garnering PR business with current Clinton communications director and former Glover Park Partner Howard Wolfsen on Michael Moore's films, which are produced by Clinton ally and supporter Harvey Weinstein (see this clip, where both Weinstein and Moore laud Clinton and discuss Weinstein's relationship with her). Lehane is regularly used by reporters as a quote machine, speaking unofficially for the campaigns in a 'hands-off' manner so Clinton spokespeople don't have to say it. When Lehane says something, you can pretty much be assured that it's coming from the Clinton campaign.

http://mydd.com/story/2007/6/12/01712/5390

[MH1]

1. Isn't Lehane the one who started the "intern" rumor about Kerry?

Which of course was total b.s. and anyone who knows Kerry and Teresa would know.

What a slimeball, eh?

[ElizabethDC]

2. He didn't start it, but he at least helped spread it

per this NY Mag profile of the "intern" herself: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/features/9221/index3.html

[MH1]

3. It quotes a couple people saying Lehane "shopped" the rumor

and I have heard that he is the one who leaked it to Drudge.

Did I miss the part in the story where they identified someone else as the source?

But in any case, it is too bad that ANY Democrat or progressive would employ him.

[ElizabethDC]

4. It was started by a female Republican friend of the woman's

From the article:

'The more people I talked to, the more one supposed source kept coming up, a woman whom Drudge had called my “close friend.” I won’t mention her name here, but she had worked for a Republican lobbyist—Bill Jarrell, who runs a firm called Washington Strategies, gives money to Bush, and had been a top aide to Tom DeLay. I called her immediately to ask her if she had been telling people I’d had an affair with Kerry. “I may have said you knew him,” she said, sounding as if she were choosing her words with great care. “I may have said you had dinner with him. But I never said you had an affair!”


Then another reporter also said she’d told him I had slept with Kerry. I couldn’t believe one of my closest friends would tell such a thing—we went all the way back to tenth grade. I had even asked her to be a bridesmaid. She denied it again, then softened her position. “I may have told Bill that you knew Kerry. Look, I was once with you when you phoned Kerry’s office and then he called you right back. And I thought, How amazing, and I got excited and I told friends about it.” She started to cry. “I’m very, very sorry,” she sobbed. “If all this leads back to me, it wasn’t intentional.”'

link: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/politics/national/features/9221/index4.html

By "shopped," I think they mean that Lehane was trying to spread it around to news outlets - but he wasn't the one who started saying that the girl had an affair with Kerry. I agree, Lehane isn't a good guy - but he didn't invent the story.

[MH1]

7. Ah, okay, I see now.

Thanks - I never knew that full story.

Doesn't really make Lehane look better, but at least I know where it started now.

[Adelante]

6. That was all in print at one time or another

However, Chris Lehane really was not involved. Craig Crawford, of the Congressional Quarterly and then a columnist with MSNBC, retracted the statement from the leaked to Drudge memo that pointed to Chris Lehane as the originator of the smear against Sen. Kerry. He told Joe Conason: "The comments attributed to me are from a private email to television news associates based on conversations with Democratic campaign operatives. I did not consider any of it confirmed enough to report or publish. I can only verify that Chris Lehane's rivals in other Democratic campaigns made these claims and I have found no independent source to confirm it. Which is why we did not go with the story. But then someone sent my email to others, which is the only reason it got into the public domain."

Now Chris Lehane is a dirty dog, no question, but the rap on the intern does not belong with him, but another (unnamed) 2004 primary campaign.

[Texas_Kat]

5. Lehane is warmed over dogspit

That the best compliment I can give him.

[JI7]

8. Lehane is one of those that just needs to go away and get away from

our party and candidates .

i hated him ever since 2000. he comes off as a loser asshole on tv also.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AtomicKitten]

21. 2000? Really?

McAullife was DNC chair from Feb 2001 until Feb 2005, so your dates aren't even accurate; that's what happens when bitter blaming goes awry.

Although you persist in blaming him for all that went wrong with the universe in your eyes, as DNC chair McAullife did his job by making the party solvent and computerizing it for maximum efficiency. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14038-2004Jul25.html That is something you cannot deny yet refuse to acknowledge. Now what was that about truth you're always yammering about again?

And to continue to suggest that McAullife (usually vis a vis the Clintons, right?) had some sort of complicity in the losses in 2000 (wasn't even DNC chair then), 2002 and 2004 is the epitome of delusional blaming.

The Democratic Party needs your type of input (bitter, nasty, unreasonable/inaccurate accusations and negativity masquerading as the truth and the light) right now in the midst of an election like a scorching case of Chlamydia.

[creeksneakers2]

9. There's evidence here that Lehane takes the Clinton side

I don't see any evidence at all that he is a secret funnel for Hillary. Just because somebody says something good about Hillary does not mean he's conspriring with her.

[blm]

10. Is Lehane part of the constant backstabbing that Doug Brinkley was referring to?

Was Lehane (who also 'lost' his computer with all Kerry's data on it) deliberately planted into Kerry and Clark's camps by Dem powerstructure?

Lots of legitimate questions with NO ANSWERS from TeamClinton.


This talk by historian Douglas Brinkley occurred in April 2004:


http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=13354


Whom does the biographer think his subject will pick as a running mate? Not Hillary Rodham Clinton. "There's really two different Democratic parties right now: there's the Clintons and Terry McAuliffe and the DNC and then there's the Kerry upstarts. John Kerry had one of the great advantages in life by being considered unable to get the nomination in December. He watched every Democrat in the country flee from him, and the Clintons really stick the knife in his back a bunch of times, so he's able to really see who was loyal to him and who wasn't. That's a very useful thing in life."




http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/oct/07/did_carville_tip_bush_off_to_kerry_strategy_woodward



Did Carville Tip Bush Off to Kerry Strategy (Woodward)

By M.J. Rosenberg |

I just came across a troubling incident that Bob Woodward reports in his new book. Very troubling.
On page 344, Woodward describes the doings at the White House in the early morning hours of Wednesday, the day after the '04 election.

Apparently, Kerry had decided not to concede. There were 250,000 outstanding ballots in Ohio.

So Kerry decides to fight. In fact, he considers going to Ohio to camp out with his voters until there is a recount. This is the last thing the White House needs, especially after Florida 2000.

So what happened?

James Carville gets on the phone with his wife, Mary Matalin, who is at the White House with Bush.

"Carville told her he had some inside news. The Kerry campaign was going to challenge the provisional ballots in Ohio -- perhaps up to 250,000 of them. 'I don't agree with it, Carville said. I'm just telling you that's what they're talking about.'

"Matalin went to Cheney to report...You better tell the President Cheney told her."

Matalin does, advising Bush that "somebody in authority needed to get in touch with J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican Secretary of State in Ohio who would be in charge of any challenge to the provisional votes." An SOS goes out to Blackwell.
>>>>>>>>




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg




Wonder why?


http://consortiumnews.com/2006/111106.html

[Gloria]

11. Clinton seems to be assembing a cast of characters whom I detest...

Penn, Carville, wiht Lehane hanging around...UGH

[blm]

12. The underminers of other Democrats and their campaigns. Someone gives them

power within the party structure all these years.

[SaveElmer]

14. It is well known this story was planted by Obama supporters....

Right IllinoisOrwell?

[ronnykmarshall]

16. The young and hip ones?

That's was a pretty good catch there, Elmer.

I mean considering all of us Hillary supporter are so fucking stupid and shitting in our Depends!

:rofl:

[Alamom]

17. : - )

:rofl:

[Capn Sunshine]

18. "Planted"?

Are you trying to infer something? Like it isn't something that is true? Because Lehane, and his actions are well known.

[rinsd]

19. Elmer is mocking the OP who said something nearly identical about the Clinton campaign (nt)

[Adelante]

20. Come on, Cap'n

Like Robert Gibbs is a choir boy? Surely you remember his black ops in Iowa. These shitheads are in every campaign. However, so far, Lehane doesn't seem to be in Clinton's outside of MyDD's conspiracy theory.

[Sparkly]

15. Is Lehane working for her campaign or not??

One very prominent Clinton surrogate is Chris Lehane ....

(snip)

Lehane, though he doesn't officially work for Clinton, has a long relationship with the Clinton and their machine entourage...

(snip)

Lehane is regularly used by reporters as a quote machine, speaking unofficially for the campaigns in a 'hands-off' manner so Clinton spokespeople don't have to say it. When Lehane says something, you can pretty much be assured that it's coming from the Clinton campaign.

I don't understand how this conclusion is reached. Is the plural "campaigns" in the last snippet a typo? Campaigns do have people who say and do things the candidate him/herself can't, but this "unofficial," "you can pretty much be assured" hunch is odd to me.