Score One for the Democrats in Memo-gate Spin

gopusa ^ | February 16, 2004 | Bobby Eberle

[prairiebreeze]

The issue of leaked memos from the Senate Judiciary Committee is alive and well on Capitol Hill. However, the scant print and television coverage being generated on the controversy is focusing almost exclusively on how the memos were released to certain members of the media and little on the actual contents of the memos. This is testament to the prowess of the Democrats in spin control and the unwillingness of the Republicans to call them on it.

A key figure at the center of the scandal, Manuel Miranda, resigned from his post last week as counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). Miranda was the pointman for Republican efforts to move forward on President Bush's judicial nominees. Miranda was also the man responsible for divulging the contents of memos written by Democratic staffers which outlined a pattern of seemingly unethical and inappropriate actions by Democratic Senators at the request of special interest groups.

Miranda is actually the second casualty of the controversy. In January, Elaine Jones, President and Chief Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, announced her retirement after a complaint was filed against her with the Virginia Bar Association for her role in the scandal. Certain memos show that she sought to delay the confirmation hearing of a judge to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals until after the Michigan affirmative action case was decided.

Another judicial memo to Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) stressed the need to delay action on D.C. Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada. The memo labels Estrada as "especially dangerous." Included in the reasons for this label was the fact that Estrada is "Latino." The staffer wrote in the memo, "They want you to hold off on Estrada as long as possible." Miguel Estrada has since withdrawn his name from consideration after years of delay and filibusters by Senate Democrats.

In other memos to both Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Durbin, staffers documented efforts by liberal special interest groups to influence the scheduling of Judiciary Committee hearings in order for the groups to have more time to mount an attack on a particular Bush nominee. In a memo to Sen. Durbin dated October 15, 2001, a staffer wrote, "The groups are asking that the Committee hold a second hearing on Pickering in a few weeks, when they will have had adequate time to research him fully."

The staffer continued, "The decision to schedule Pickering's hearing was made by Senator Leahy himself, not his staff, so the groups are likely to ask you to intercede personally. They will also seek assurances that they will receive adequate warning of future controversial nominees."

Despite the glaring issues raised by these memos -- using official Senate activities such as the scheduling of hearings for partisan purposes -- the "heat" is not being placed on the Democrats for writing them, but rather on the Republicans for exposing them. An investigation was ordered by the Democrats involving the Senate Sergeant at Arms, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) called for the "heads" of those responsible for the leaks. In comments to the Salt Lake Tribune, Hatch said, "I am mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."

Is Sen. Hatch serious? What about withholding consideration of nominees to appease special interest groups? What about delaying committee actions until controversial court decisions are rendered? Those are the issues, and Sen. Hatch is doing a disservice to the Senate by not bringing them to light.

Miranda, who issued a statement upon his departure from Sen. Frist's office, explained that he left his position so that he could "speak freely" about the investigation conducted by Sergeant at Arms William Pickle. Miranda questioned why the Democrats directed the inquiry to the office of the Sergeant at Arms -- an office which had never previously conducted such an inquiry. He also questioned events "that have contaminated and stifled the investigation."

Democrats have complained that the memos were stolen as the result of computer hacking, but Miranda said the access was not unlawful. He claims that his actions were not illegal or unethical since the documents were unprotected on the network.

"I knew that there is no privacy expectation to documents on a government server, documents that are regularly backed up and stored in a government facility," Miranda said. "I knew that these were not confidential or classified documents."

Miranda said he was told that the staff of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had been informed that their files were unprotected, but did nothing to correct the situation.

Miranda stated that the focus of the investigation needed to return to the substance of the memos that he says detail "abuse of the public trust" by the Democrats. He says that he read only a few of the thousands of the documents downloaded from a server shared by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said his interest in those pages was to learn when hearings would be held on nominees.

Miranda complained, "This was information needlessly withheld from us by the Leahy staff but communicated freely to liberal outside groups so that they could prepare distortions and plan their attacks on judicial nominees."

It's time for Republicans to stop allowing themselves to be slapped around by the Democrats. The Democrats are masters of spin and have, so far, successfully kept the attention away from what the memos have to say. The American public should demand a full investigation into the contents of the memos, and Republicans should put the focus where it belongs. Republican grassroots activists are tired of seeing their Republican leaders wilt under hardball tactics from the Democrats. Perhaps, instead of campaign contributions, we should send them all a little backbone.

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Bobby Eberle is President and CEO of GOPUSA (www.GOPUSA.com), a news, information, and commentary company based in Houston, TX. He holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Rice University.

[prairiebreeze]

Hear, Hear!!

[Piquaboy]

The Rats seem quite adept at turning a negative into a positive for them with the media's help.

[Cubs Fan]

This is testament to the prowess of the Democrats in spin control and the unwillingness of the Republicans to call them on it.

the Repubs in the senate are utterly imcompetent wimps.

They should have had press conference after press conference about the dems blatant racism. But what do they do even when they have a winning issue? they cower in the corner hoping it will all disappear. Typical, pathetic.

[boomop1]

I just dare the pubies to call me for a contribution, I gave several years ago, boy was that a mistake, always give anonyns if possible, I gave to the right to life and now have an open line to them. I ran off the last republican fund raiser told them to ditch Hatch, Frist, Specter, Snow, give them page jobs then call me.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Long ago, I've been yearning for the people of Utah to begin a recall effort on Orin Hatch. What a pathetic, feckless "leader".

And now Lindsey Graham is showing his wimp side -- although he displayed that back when he gave Bubba a pass on the impeachment charge related to perjury in the Paula Jones trial. Lindsey, I guess, sees his future in being the John Breaux of the Republican party, playing nicey-nice with Hitlery and other two-faced Demos (apologize for the redundancy there). I'm sure Lindsey sees his seat as safe for the next 24 years -- what a cushy career, especially once you've made all your alliances with the enemy and demonstrate that you're willing to play ball with all the insiders. Very disappointing.

On a more positive note: this should be a great year for Cubs Fans!

[pointsal]

Yes, spineless GOP...nitwits....

[txzman]

"It's time for Republicans to stop allowing themselves to be slapped around by the Democrats. "

No kidding!

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

The dems have made this all about the way these memos were uncovered, successfully deflecting any discussion of their inflammatory content. They have made this seem like a Watergate-style episode of dirty tricks. The public is unaware or not interested in the facts.

The democrats and the republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee apparently share one computer server. For those of you who are not familiar with computer networks, here are the basics:

Suppose you have your computer in the den, and your wife has hers in the kitchen. You hired a teenage geek to hook the two of them together, which he did by running some kind of ethernet cable between them. He set up the system so that either of you could see everything on your spouse's computer. So, when you're accessing your computer, your data is on C drive, for instance, and your wife's is available on D drive. It is possible to share your entire hard drive this way, or, you may specify that you only want to share what is in certain directories, or sub-directories. You may not want to be able to access each other's emails, for instance.

Apparently, when a system resembling the oversimplified example above was installed for the Judiciary Committee, the geek-in-charge set it up so that, by merely clicking on the Network Neighborhood icon, right there on the desktop, data that resided on other hard drives, but was "Shared" was readily available.

I can imagine how this discovery must have transpired. Here is my fictional account. A republican staffer is searching his hard drive for a particular memo. He can't locate it. He thinks, maybe it's on my colleague's computer. He goes to Network Neighborhood, where he notices that, in addition to his colleague's D drive, there are also two drives listed as E and F. "What the hell are in those?" He clicks on the E Drive icon and sees a list of memos written by democrat staffers. The next two words he utters are "Holy" and something that rhymes with spit.

He looks through a few of these memos and then races in to his supervisor's office to share the "Eureka" moment. Not exactly breaking and entering, but a far cry from computer hacking. It is the technological equivalent of sharing an office with the opposition party, and finding that he left a stack of memos in plain sight on your desk.

The content of the memos is clearly the more important issue. If a policeman searches someone's trunk without a proper warrant or probable cause, that's one thing. If he find's Osama bin Laden in the trunk clutching a radioactive bomb, that's another. Deal with the cop in the appropriate manner for overstepping his authority. But, for God's sake, deal with what he found in the trunk. It's important!

[carlo3b]

I just dare the pubies to call me for a contribution..I ran off the last republican fund raiser told them to ditch Hatch, Frist, Specter, Snow, give them page jobs then call me.

Thats OK, they probably won't dump their majority position in the Senate, just to please you.. I'll give twice to cover you, to keep KERRY/DEAN/EDWARDS/CLINTON out of our Oval Office, after all we just had the sink replaced, and the carpet cleaned..

[pabianice]

I remain confounded at the Republicans' gutlessness and lack of fight. What the hell is wrong with them? Could Hillary! really be blackmailing them with her FBI files?

[boomop1]

Oh keep them in the senate so we have the alleged majority we never have been in charge give them jobs they can be useful at, not on committees in which they bend over and take it smiling, F them.

[Solson]

I am absolutely FURIOUS at the GOP Senators, namely Hatch and Frist for not doing ANYTHING to make these memos surface NOR to do anything to protect the namesake of Silberman, the judge appointed to head up the commission on Iraq and 9/11 and intelligence. Harry Reid can stand up and libel the man and not a single G**-damn Republican stands up to rebut the crap put forth.

I am so damn tired of Bush doing the right thing only to have it completely undermined by Senators and Congressmen unwilling to fight for what is right.

[carlo3b]

*boomop1*.. Geeeze, all the great FR names were taken when I got to choose mine .. :o)

[Bobby Eberle]

Thanks for posting the column. I really appreciate it.

Yes! It is so frustrating to see some of the things that the Senate Republicans are doing. We need action on judicial nominees, and we need to expose these memos for what they are and not let the Dems run the show. Who's in charge over there anyway???

Bobby

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Robert R. Eberle, Ph.D.
President and CEO, GOPUSA
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Talon News
Web: http://www.gopusa.com

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[boomop1]

Well I've been here forever I think I'm member 500 and something, who would have thought we would have grown so much, I use we as family, as there is no site like this or as significant.

[caprock]

The Rats seem quite adept at turning a negative into a positive for them with the media's help.

The media is THE factor in the dims' ability to maintain their control. Merely one year ago the media's absolutely anti-American bias was on display in their coverage of the war in Iraq. How soon the entertainment driven masses forget!

[carlo3b]

I agree my dear FRiend, where in the hell would we be without JimRob, and FR, and folks like us pushing and shoving the whimpy fools in our party to the right.. I'm just pulling your jump cord.. LOL.. :)

[ReleaseTheHounds]

I hope and trust that comment makes you as sick as me...

[PrincessB]

It could be even more simplified than your reply. The staffer could have done something we call an "explorer search." (Entered a word, like Estrada in Microsoft explorer search). ALL files that the staffer had access to with that word would show up in a list and the staffer could open each individually.

It happens all the time in my office.