Psycho GOP Operative Makes Threatening Call to Eliot Spitzer's Elderly Father

This post, written by Howie Klein, originally appeared on Down With Tyranny!

Earlier today a blogger friend from upstate New York was telling me about someone he said was the sickest, meanest Republican north of the Beltway. It was about some Rove-inspired dirty trick he had played on a congressional candidate last year. A few hours later I got an e-mail entitled "Speaking of the Devil." It was a link to a NY Times story about Eliot Spitzer's 83-year old father, Bernard, being threatened by an obviously deranged Republican consultant-- the same vicious GOP operative he had been telling me about, Roger Stone.

The Times includes an mp3 so you can hear the actual call from Stone to the governor's dad. The Times also includes a warning: "Includes Strong Language." But don't worry, if you're a regular DWT reader, you've heard worse (to hear it click the orange "listen" icon above the picture of Stone and his wife). Stone, being a Republican, denies it all. The Times describes him, generously, as "a seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics who has worked for Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan and for George W. Bush in the 2000 recount battle, adamantly denied the allegation in an interview, calling it "the ultimate dirty trick." He asserted that allies of Governor Spitzer may have gained access to his home phone to make the threatening call."

Stone, perhaps projecting standard GOP operating procedures onto Spitzer, says his apartment may have been busted into so the call could be made from there. "He said his apartment building on Central Park South is owned by H. Dale Hemmerdinger, a fund-raiser for Mr. Spitzer who is the governor's nominee to be chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and suggested that allies of the governor might have given access to his apartment to someone who made the threatening call."

Mr. Stone said: "They have unfettered access to my apartment. I am on television constantly. As Gore Vidal said, never pass up the chance to have sex or be on television. Putting together a voice tape that sounds like me wouldn't be hard to do."

Mr. Stone said he could not remember where he was on the date of the purported call and had no specific evidence that his apartment had been entered without authorization. But he said he believed that things have been missing from his apartment recently.