Is Mitch McConnell Secretly Financing Right Wing Attacks On a 12-Year-Old?

Posted by Christy Hardin Smith at 11:00 AM on October 10, 2007.

This post, written by Christy Hardin Smith, originally appeared on FireDogLake

What's with the non-denial from Sen. Mitch McConnell's office? Is one of his aides indeed coordinating with wingnuttia for the attacks on a 12-year-old boy and his sister and their family? From ABC News, via Digby:

"This is a perverse distraction from the issue at hand," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, D-Nev. "Instead of debating the merits of providing health care to children, some in GOP leadership and their right-wing friends would rather attack a 12-year-old boy and his sister who were in a horrific car accident."

Manley cited an e-mail sent to reporters by a Senate Republican leadership aide, summing up recent blog traffic about the boy's family. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declined to comment on Manley's charge that GOP aides were complicit in spreading disparaging information about Frosts. (emphasis mine)

In my experience, if you are not participating in something, you deny it outright to kill the story.

Mitch McConnell is the Republican Minority Leader in the Senate and sponsor of the Orwellian-named "Families First" legislation which would actually decrease the number of kids covered for benefits. Classy. Is someone in his office coordinating a dirty tricks PR advance against a 12 year old child? Have they been helping the story along, doing oppo on this child and his family and feeding it out through the wurlitzer to their corporate media buddies so their hands appear publicly clean while the wingnuts launder their slime tactics for them? As Digby asks, has the Senate Republican Minority leaders office frequently been used as a laundering point of contact for wayward freepers and random wingnuttery at large? Yes or no.

The NYTimes parses the disgusting all-out spitefest against this family, and coughs up another quote from a "an aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell" -- gee, they sure do get around, don't they?

Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday said, "I think it's really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy."...

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off, glad to let bloggers take the heat for attacking a family with injured children.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their ground and not pull punches. (emphasis mine)

Smells like a political bait and switch maneuver to me, with the GOP leadership leaving the skeezy tactical bag holding to the more than happy to hold it foaming at the mouth wingnuttia denizens. News flash to Sen. McConnell: if you had anything to do with this, the slime stops at your door as well. Attacking minor children for political gain is craven and wrong. Period. Was this coordination on attacks against a 12 year old done with Sen. McConnell's approval -- or is his control over his staff so lax that he had no idea this was being done? And, either way, how does this qualify as "leadership?"

Is anyone in the media going to actually dig into this and find out how involved the McConnell oppo shop has been in all of this? Because I would love to hear a yes or no answer on any of the above questions.

UPDATE: The Baltimore Sun has a piece on how all of this nastiness is impacting the Frost family. (H/T to Marie Roget for the link.) This from a RedState commenter is particularly appalling:

"Hang 'em. Publically," the contributor wrote. "Let 'em twist in the wind and be eaten by ravens. Then maybe the bunch of socialist patsies will think twice."

They left this up in their public comments section?!? Vile.

Tagged as: children, health care, malkin, mcconnell, foster, s-chip

Christy Hardin Smith is a former attorney, who earned her undergraduate degree at Smith College, in American Studies and Government, concentrating in American Foreign Policy.