Last night we told you how Wyoming Rep. Barbara Cubin (R) threatened to slap Thomas Rankin, the wheelchair-bound Libertarian candidate running against her this year. Rankin says Cubin’s comment amounted to a “a slur related to his phyiscal disability” (MS).
Now Rankin is saying Cubin should resign. âShe is not the type of person Wyoming residents want representing them.”
(ed.note: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that Rankin had accused Cubin of uttering a slur in addition to the slap comment. In fact, the former was Rankin’s way of referring to the latter incident. Thanks to TPM Reader TB for catching my error.)
Hastert before the Ethics Committee? We’re getting reports he just snuck over to the committee meeting room. Does this mean he’ll have to submit to questions from his toady Rep. “Doc” Hastings (R-WA)?
He even fooled Laura?
Laura Bush, when asked on the Today Show (9/18/06) what she tells people when asked about Iraq: “Well, I say the–exactly what the president says, that we need to stay the course.”
The wife really is always the last to know.
Just to bring home that this is the sort of election where no seat is safe, an internal poll by Rep. Ralph Hall’s (R-TX) Democratic challenger shows him within striking distance.
Will Hall survive another term? What of all the teenage victims of sex trafficking whose accounts will go unchallenged?
Ladies and gentlemen, your United States Congress.
Why didn’t members of the House Intelligence Committee see that crucial National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism for several months? Because there was a problem scanning the document in.
And it’s pretty clear that no member of the committee would have ever seen it if The New York Times hadn’t come knocking.
Is Ken Mehlman kidding?
A short while ago we got this email from TPM Reader AJ …
I was just watching Tim Russert interview Ken Mehlman about the RNC’s anti-Ford ad running in Tennessee. Russert asked him point blank if he would pull the ad given the outcry over racist overtones. He said it was an independent expenditure, so he wrote a check and that was it. He claimed to have no control over the content and no power to pull it. If that’s really true, why does the legalese at the end of the ad state: “The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertisement. Paid for by the Republican National Committee and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. www.gop.com”? Wouldn’t the legalese imply that Ken Mehlman has the power to pull the ad? If not, then how would anyone ever find out who bears responsibility? Just wondering how this really works.
We had just been trying to confirm Mehlman’s statement with NBC, which we haven’t been able to do yet directly. But The Hotline just did a post which appears to confirm the key line. That is, when Mehlman says, “I don’t have the authority to take it down or put it up. It’s called an independent expenditure.”
The ad, in case you aren’t familiar with it, is a cartoonish spot which might be subtitled, ‘Harold Ford is an uppity negro who does the wild thing with white women.’ You can see it here.
But back to the issue of the ad. The ad is run by the RNC. Ken Mehlman is chairman of the RNC. He doesn’t have the authority to take the ad down? What’s he talking about? What exactly does it mean when the blurb at the end says “The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertisement. Paid for by the Republican National Committee.”
We’ll see if we can get a comment from Mehlman about whatever the heck it is he’s talking about.
“Simply staying the course in Iraq is not working. We need to take a new direction. We believe these recommendations comprise an effective alternative to the current open-ended commitment which is not producing the progress in Iraq we would all like to see. Thank you for your careful consideration of these suggestions.”
That’s Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership laying out in July what appears to be the Bush Republican position in October.
(ed.note: Special note of thanks to TPM Reader PH.)
TPM Reader TB saw the Russert interview with Ken Mehlman too …
I saw Tim Russert interview Ken Mehlman. Russert has zero credibility in my mind because he, time and time again, will let the Republicans get away with one outrageous lie and ridiculous statement after another and often turn tougher with Democrats. Why is no one calling Russert out for what he is: minimally, a complete pushover (Iâve fought the urge to use a more accurate, less flattering term here), but more likely, a well-disguised shill for the Republican party?
Shillitude is in the eye of the beholder. But Mehlman said what I think was pretty clearly a demonstrably false, ludicrous statement. Why not call him on it?
In case you don’t know what we’re talking about, see the post below.
Ken Mehlman, against racist appeals before he was for them.
Mehlman, July 14th, 2005: “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
Okay, more on Mehlman.
It seems what Ken Mehlman is likely referring to is the existence of ‘firewalls’ within the RNC in which one group or shop within the committee is running the ads and he’s not supposed to involve himself in those decisions. Here’s a page about how these firewalls work.
But I doubt very much that Mehlman is prohibited from saying, when asked, whether a public ad should be pulled down.
If you’re an election law expert, drop us a line and tell us what you know.