DNC Blog about Hatch (busting into computers)

[Renew Deal]

I got this in my email.
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The following post appeared on the DNC's weblog. You can get up-to-date news and discuss the issues of the day with your fellow Democrats at Democrats.org/blog.

Irrational
Slate has a good piece up about the right-wing attack machine letting loose on one of its own: Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

Hatch has never been afraid to use divisive rhetoric to achieve partisan goals. But when Republican Senate staffers were caught breaking into Democrats' computers, Hatch did the only reasonable thing and called for an investigation into the incident.

As the Slate article details, Republican reaction has been swift and harsh:

The more the story balloons in the media, embarrassing Republicans and distracting them from trying to confirm more judges, the more right-wing activists savage Hatch, the man they hold responsible for it. To them, the Utah Republican has done something "acutely damaging to the struggle to get conservative judges onto the federal bench," as one National Review writer put it this week, in a column widely e-mailed among disgusted activists. Another activist ominously warned in the Washington Post of a "thermonuclear" punishment for Hatch. Also in the Post, Gary Bauer fumed over a "demoralized Republican base around the country" and sounded about ready to stage a public hanging on Capitol Hill.

No matter that Hatch has spent the past three years fighting nonstop to confirm George Bush's judicial nominees. After Hatch declared himself "mortified" by the file-stealing allegations and said he supported a formal investigation, angry GOP activists -- who want to downplay down the scandal -- accused him of being a weak-kneed appeaser of Democrats. The National Review's Timothy P. Carney even likened him to Neville Chamberlain.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2095803/

(And if Hatch is Chamberlain, what does that make Democrats for wanting an investigation when files are stolen from our computers?)

The attacks on Hatch reveal conservatives as shrill, ultra partisan, and ultimately irrational in the pursuit of an extremist agenda.

http://www.democrats.org/blog/comment/00010442.html

[sadiesworld]

1. Maybe we could trade Zell Miller for Hatch.

[UTUSN]

2. Never Trust HATCH or Any Wingnut

He routinely, during the ESTRADA battle, smeared by saying that by being against ESTRADA Senate Dems were being "anti Hispanic", the way he says opposition to PRYOR is "anti Catholic".

The fall guy, Manuel MIRANDA was HATCH's staffer before going to FRIST. Faux-er Cal THOMAS hosted him last Saturday and MIRANDA said he was not at all put off by the investigation started by HATCH, that possible hacking would have to be investigated by whoever is in charge at any given time, that HATCH is his friend and nothing would change that.

As for the "investigation", it could be a way to provide cover and innoculation to the Repukes. It could also be a way to smear Dems, since MIRANDA said the Dem memos contained racist comments about ESTRADA. What better way to get the memos into the public domain, a la the Starr Report.

[Bandit]

3. The more they fight among themselves the more it stays newsworthy

I can't stand Hatch but in this case he is trying to do almost the right thing. The GOP as a whole is totally corrupt and needs some come up-pence