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Thursday, October 31, 2002
There's a specious claim circulating the Web that the Wellstone memorial was DNC-planned to be politically-charged. It's cited by Josh at OxBlog, who cites Powerline who cites this article.
This is a very aggressive claim, one that shouldn't be made without contacting Rick Kahn and others in Minnesota -- something the author doesn't even attempt to do.
Not a single named source, and even the quotes themselves seem rather sketchy; who in their right mind in the DNC would, first of all, leak such a story, but, stranger, say something as stupid as this:"There were two agendas at work," one source said. "We needed to draw attention to the election. Between the sniper and Iraq, the election has been lost in the news. And then we needed to energize the Democratic base and Wellstone supporters in Minnesota." Or this"That was the plan all along and it was one of the reasons we didn't want Cheney at the event," says one Democratic political operative who spoke only under promise that his name not be used. "It was a high stakes gamble but this is a campaign that demands high risks." Who says such things?
UPDATE: A call placed to the "Campaign Headquarters"(nee Wellstone Campaign Office), brought the response from whoever answered the phone that this claim is "blatantly false". But, realizing her position within the campaign, she wouldn't give her name, but took down my e-mail address for potential on-the-record comments from the campaign.
Steven I. Weiss 7:20:00 PM
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