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Friday, February 13, 2004
I'm more convinced than ever that the Drudge story on Kerry was just a Republican attempt to change the subject. This is apparently the story: no affair. And Joe Conason on Salon has this today:
Drudge's allegations set off a chain of speculation. Certainly some Democrats wondered if the evidence-free item came from Lehane, who declined public comment this afternoon. Lehane has a reputation as an often rough operator, and that may provide a pretext for Drudge to smear him, too. Following Lehane's dismissal from the Kerry campaign some months ago, the tone of his remarks about his former employer occasionally sounded vengeful. If Clark actually uttered the nasty remark as quoted by Drudge, the general might have heard such rumors from his sharp-edged consultant. But then if Clark believed Kerry was about to "implode," he might not have dropped out of the primary race -- or decided to endorse the Massachusetts senator, as he is expected to do on Friday.
A source close to Lehane vehemently denied to me that Lehane had peddled any rumors about Kerry -- and turned attention back toward the White House as Drudge's likely source. "My assessment is that this is not merely a serendipitous event," he said.
The Drudge item blaming Lehane quoted Craig Crawford, a former Democratic operative who now works as a consultant and columnist for MSNBC. Within 10 minutes after Drudge posted the Kerry intern item, Crawford sent a memo to his superiors that said the story was "something Chris Lehane (clark press secy) has shopped around for a long time." According to Crawford, someone at MSNBC promptly leaked his memo to Drudge. But when Lehane called Crawford with a loudly indignant denial, the MSNBC columnist quickly issued a public retraction. He said:
"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." In other words, there is no proof that Lehane circulated the rumor, let alone that the rumor has any basis in reality.
Once again, Drudge has raised questions -- but they may not be the ones he seeks to raise. The first is about journalistic standards. The second is the identity of his anonymous sources.
So I'm convinced this whole thing was a failed effort to take the media scrutiny away from the White House, and no wonder. Certainly the White House (even one that claims it doesn't "look at polls") must have seen these numbers.
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