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NRCC Did "Damage Control" On Foleygate Earlier Than Suspected

By Greg Sargent - November 2, 2006, 3:10PM

Over at The Daily Politics, Ben Smith is reporting that the National Republican Congressional Committee was having private discussions over how to do "damage control" on Foleygate earlier than suspected:

Two senior aides to National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Reynolds participated in “damage control” conference calls concerning correspondence between Congressman Mark Foley and a former congressional page -- two days before the scandal became public, and earlier than previously reported.

Smith's full story here. TPMmuckraker's Paul Kiel explains what it all means right here.

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Well, that DC surely did the NRCC Keystone Kops a world of good, didn't it? Why is it so hard for supposedly smart people to learn that stuff like this always is always discovered and reported? Surely the best thing for the GOP to do would have been to be honest and forthright and take their lumps rather than to compound the problem by committing a felony (obstruction of justice, suborning witnesses/testimony) to cover up a felony. Some people just have to find out the hard way, it seems.

This would be hilarious if it weren't for the serious nature of the charges involved.

For the record, and this will be important on Nov. 8, it's spelled s-u-b-p-o-e-n-a. They should get a goodly amount of practice with that word.

Posted by HECVT
November 2, 2006 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink

Imagine the damage control for Ted Haggard, evangelical minister and leader. His links to the Administration and Republicans were detailed in an Oct 30, 2005 Denver Post article:

Haggard tells himself over and over that influence is on loan. In an instant, it could be gone. The men he moves with now - Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon - know it too....

Haggard has become a go-to person for politicians seeking to measure how that constituency thinks. He takes part in weekly White House conference calls.

Haggard lent advice to Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee ....
He counseled British Prime Minister Blair on what kind of semantics to use in persuading President Bush to support Third World debt relief.
He traveled with a delegation of evangelical leaders to Israel, where he assured Prime Minister Sharon of continued evangelical support.

In a private moment in 2003, Haggard told President Bush that U.S. tariffs on steel inflate the price of steel worldwide and hurt poor nations. Bush looked surprised that an evangelical would care about tariffs. A couple of weeks later, the tariffs were eliminated. But Haggard does not claim credit.

Posted by irishkg
November 3, 2006 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink