Ben Smith pretty much sucks.

[thepurpose]

McCain's campaign didn't need to push out Ashley Todd's story -- it was calculated to be attention-getting, and once she made a formal complaint to the police, it was going to get attention.

And indeed, McCain's top staff had stopped his press aides, at least in headquarters, from saying much of anything about the story, at least by the time I reached them last night.

But Greg Sargent catches McCain's Pennsylvania communications director pushing the story out, an inglorious moment in a truly ugly (and, it appears, criminal) episode. The remaining question -- for which there's no evidence -- is whether Todd told anyone in advance of her stunt.

One other useful point from Jose Antonio Vargas: Traditional reporters (including me) are basically going to follow the old rules of journalism: Report that there's been an allegation put onto the public record, report what the police have to say about it, but generally shy away from speculating about things we're not sure about on a crime story. There are no such rules online though, something that sometimes makes me wince, but which in this case meant that bloggers on both sides quickly expressed their skepticism, and helped moderate the impact of a story that was designed to explode.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/

[TeamJordan23]

1. He is a closet PUMA. nm

[ErinBerin84]

2. how is a local wing of the McCain campaign

...in fact, the new "must have" state...and not a low level staffer, its communication director for PA....not part of the "McCain campaign"? I agree with Eugene....if they don't "clean house in PA", they have some spainin to do.




Oh yeah, and Ben Smith has always sucked. He is presented as the Politico's "democrat", but he's constantly sticking up for the right wing.

[Occam Bandage]

3. Politico is a right wing site. Ben Smith has good info from time to time, though.