Soccer Dad

Republican dirty tricks

Throughout the Joseph Steffen scandal, the local newspapers have been very compliant in framing the incident as a Republican dirty trick. While Steffen may have played a role in spreading the false rumor about Mayor O'Malley's infidelity, he did not originate it. But the media's approach to it taints their coverage of the upcoming statewide races: the 2006 Senate and Gubernatorial elections. Here's a snippet from an article about Kweisi Mfume speaking to the greaduates of Howard University:

"The Republicans want this seat at all costs," Miller said. "They'll have $10 million for a 'Swift boat' committee that will try to drive up the negatives of the Democratic candidate. When you start out giving them ammunition like this, you can just imagine what it will be like."

That's Maryland Senate President Mike Miller. Now I don't see what was wrong about Swift Boat ads. They questioned aspects of Sen. Kerry's record. However, the article was discussing the allegations that when Mfume was president of the NAACP he favored women with whom he or his son had romantic interests.
The source of those allegations were NAACP insiders and they were published in the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post, hardly precincts where Republicans are found in great numbers. So the statement is out of place and the reporter, Matthew Mosk sees no point in challenging or qualifying the statement. Why? Because it fits the way he is presenting the race. It will be Democrats vs. those nasty Republicans who bring up dirt. But do they?
Now it's been discovered that the first public appearance of "O'Malley cheating" rumors came from none other than Judge O'Malley - Katie O'Malley is a judge - in an interview with the Washington Post.
So how does the Sun deal with it?

"There's a big difference between public wonderings about a young couple thrust into the spotlight of being the city's first family, and a premeditated, orchestrated and relentless campaign run by dirty trick operatives close to the governor funded on state taxpayer dollars," O'Malley said during a City Hall news conference yesterday.

"I'm calling upon the governor to end this cowardly abuse of power," the mayor continued. "I'm calling upon the governor to fire the remaining members of his taxpayer-financed dirty tricks team. And I'm calling on the governor to stop right now the politics of character smear and character assassination that apparently he learned at the elbow of Newt Gingrich."

And the denial:

Ehrlich said he had no comment on the substance of the mayor's allegations but said that "O'Malley points fingers."

Is there any evidence that Ehrlich has been running "a taxpayer-financed dirty tricks team?" Why doesn't the Sun's reporter challenge that statement? Or is the "dirty tricks team" just one of those pieces of receieved wisdom that needs no corroboration?
Despite that problem the article actually doesn't do a bad job on another aspect of the controversy. Yesterday some e-mail written by Katie O'Malley's brother came to light. They seemed critical of Judge O'Malley. And the Mayor of course blamed the governor for releasing the e-mails. The problem, as the Sun reports is:

The e-mails from Commissioner Curran were obtained by WBAL Radio in response to a public information act request the station made to the Public Service Commission on May 11.

While the Sun gives play to accusations from O'Malley about how anyone knew about his brother-in-law's e-mails and treats Craig Chesek to a cheap shot it's hard to have sympathy for Max O'Malley. If those e-mails were written on a government computer they're fair game.
In a related scandal story, WBAL-TV seems to be the only media outlet interested in the identity of MD4BUSH. Jayne Miller reported two weeks ago that Joseph Steffen has brought a suit to get FreeRepublic to reveal what it knows about the identity of MD4BUSH.
This isn't trivial. If MD4BUSH has ties to O'Malley specifically or the Maryland Democratic party generally it shows that the dirty tricks team is a Democratic one, not a Republican one. The fact that the O'Malley campaign knew in advance that the Washington Post would publish the article showing that Steffen may have been spreading rumors about Mayor O'Malley. If there was any co-ordination between a news organization and a political operation that's even worse.
Finally, I previously wrote that I expected the Montgomery County State's Attorney Douglas Gansler was angling to replace Doug Duncan as County Executive. Pillage Idiot notes that according to the Washington Post, Gansler wishes to replace Judge O'Malley's father, Maryland Attorney General, Joe Curran.
UPDATE: A point I left out (and that Frank of Sean and Frank just made was that in 1999 the rivals who would have spread rumors about candidate O'Malley in the race for mayor were not Republicans. Yet the gist of the article focuses on the unsupported allegation that Ehrlich is responsible for the recent spreading of rumor. The newspapers though have a powerful weapon for next year's elections - supposed Republican dirty tricks. It will be a theme we'll be reading about for the next year and a half. Democratic dirty tricks will be ignored or minimized even if there is stronger evidence of them going on.

Posted by SoccerDad at May 19, 2005 6:28 AM