Wesley Clark lobbed "Dean Tapes" grenade into Iowa

This week, tensions over Mr. Lehane burst into prime time, when Steve McMahon, a consultant for Dr. Dean's campaign, erupted in frustration at Mr. Lehane on the MSNBC program "Hardball." Mr. Lehane casually mentioned a four-year-old videotape that surfaced last week, showing Dr. Dean criticizing the Iowa caucuses as "dominated by special interests" — a definite no-no for a candidate courting Iowa voters. Clearly irritated, Mr. McMahon interrupted him.

"You know about it," Mr. McMahon said. "It came from you."

"That tape did not come from me," Mr. Lehane shot back.

Mr. McMahon, insisting he was bound by a confidential source, said later that he could not "provide proof." But he did say he wanted to put Mr. Lehane on notice. "I'm reacting to a lot of evidence that comes over the transom," he said, "and I wanted to sort of fire a shot at him and let him know that when he's doing this stuff, we hear about it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/politics/campaigns/16LEHA.html?pagewanted=2

You don't need McMahon's source as evidence. The fact that Lehane is commenting on the Dean tapes shows that Lehane has serious interest and personal knowledge about opponent research about Dean ABOUT THE STATE OF IOWA. Why would Clark people even have IOWA RESEARCH come up on their radar unless they actualy produced it themselves. This is the kind of dirty tricks Chris Lehane's whole career consists of. Now it's apparent that WESLEY CLARK PLAYED DIRTY TRICKS IN A STATE WHERE HE IS NOT EVEN PARTICIPATING!

It's now clear that Clark is not the prinicpled person I thought he was to lob dirty bombs from back rooms into a caucus he is not even signed up for.

"The fact that Lehane is commenting on the Dean tapes shows that blah blah blah" ...

Er ..... MOST ALL of those citizens who are following these races are commenting on those tapes ....


YOU are commenting on the Dean tapes ...

YOU have a serious interest in 'opponent research' in the State of Iowa ...

Are YOU working for that 'dishonest' Clark campaign too ??? ...

This is non sequitur and ad hominem fallacy presented as serious argument ....

I love ya like a Brother: ... but you cant be serious about such a tenuous association ....

It was asserted that Lehane did it, but he denies it. So I don't think it's obvious in any way that Lehane was behind it.

BUT.... even if he was. You think THIS is dirty politics? This is still child's play. The tapes were released. They weren't doctored, they weren't edited, they weren't excerpted in any way.

They were found (they were public, so I presume no illegality occurred in obtaining them) and released. By whom? I don't know. But I would hardly consider this an example of dirty politics.

Clark went way out of his way to claim he was staying out of the Iowa caucuses. If he's gonna be out of Iowa, Clark needs to stay out of Iowa.

Besides, Dean has never shown the slightest hesitation to attack Clark, whom he is now accusing of being a Republican. Seems like a fair trade to me. Do you honestly expect Dean's opponents to engage in unilateral disarmament?

I have to say I feel as though our candidates are almost being used as pawns against each other.

Its like a sport for the media whores and rich white men. And of course, it brings out the worst in our candidates, when they desire to be the best but they are too busy playing the game of SURVIVAL.

And once again, we as Americans tolerate and allow a schizophrenic election system and media to provoke and taunt otherwise normally good, principled candidates into feeling the need to promote and ignite senseless, cheap attacks.

I have figured it out. Its not the candidates. They are just playing in the ring they were thrown in.

I lay blame at our Americanized free market system, along with our shameless media more than I do the candidates.

Its time to fix the system, not our candidates.

We allow this dogfighting to go on by biting the medias bait.

These are good people that are getting sucked up in a broken, narcissistic, hedonistic fucked up system.

"Why would Clark people even have IOWA RESEARCH come up on their radar unless they actualy produced it themselves."

I think this interview with Lehane, McMahon, et al, was after these tapes already came up on the news? Or am i mistaken?
At this point, the tapes were public knowledge and so would be on everyone's radar.
Unless you are saying that since Clark is not competing in Iowa they shouldn't pay attention to anything connected to that primary? Or even bring it up? May be a low tactic, but not really a smoking gun.

The Iowa caucuses play to a very small and none too representative slice of the electorate, and are readily manipulable by special interests of various sorts. The ethanol lobby comes to mind particularly.

Why anyone would expect such a statement would not be given wide play in the current circumstance is beyond me. So is the idea that this is somehow dirty pool, because Gen. Clark is not pressing his suit in Iowa: Gen. Clark is competing against Gov. Dean, and choosing battlegrounds and tactics which seem best suited to success for him in doing so. A basic aim of strategy is to cause the most discomfiture to your opponent with the minimum investment possible on your part, and a poorer than expected showing by Gov. Dean in Iowa, against anyone, will be to the benefit nationwide of Gen. Clark.

"An election differs from a civil war only as the bloodless surrender of a force outnumbered in the field differs from Waterloo."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

All of the professional handlers with DLC ties are part of what is wrong with the Democratic Party, turning it into a pale version of the GOP.

They are more interested in taking the brass ring of the nomination, usually by pursuing a scorched earth campaign against everyone else, than they are in attacking Bush. We should not be surprised about this, after all, these are the same people that did not oppose Bush on PATRIOT or on the war in Iraq. To oppose Bush on those two issues is to oppose them!

Speaking of Lehane, Howie Carr of the Boston Herald was quoted as saying:

Dukakis fired John Sasso for dirty tricks. Kerry fired Chris Lehane and Jim Jordan for lack of same.

this is a dirty lob bomb. If MCMahon knew it was Lehane he would not hide behind a confidential source.

8. If you make a factual assertion about a candidate that is not generally accepted to be true, you must provide a link to a reputable source to back up your claim. Allegedly "innocent" questions which are actually an underhanded effort to spread rumors are not allowed. If you really need to know the answer to your question, try Google.

and


10. Do not use excessive capitalization or excessive punctuation in any post.