January
2007
Kagen bashing
GOP mouth piece Robert Novak is bashing newly-elected Wisconsin Congressman Steve Kagen. GOP talk show host Charlie Sykes has also jumped on the Kagen-bashing bandwagon. Neither of these two worthless shills is to be trusted but now a blog called Reform Dem has joined Novak and Sykes.
Appleton based newspaper The Scene has an odd story that Russell Wallace (Reform Dem) cites. Here's an excerpt from The Scene:
We get to the top of the steps and there’s Vice President Cheney with a glass of white wine and a hand in his pocket. So I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. Gail wasn’t there to hold me back. ‘Mr. Vice President, thank you for your service to the nation, and thank you so much for coming to Green Bay and campaigning against me. I couldn’t have won without your help.’
He then asked Cheney to enunciate his vision for Iraq.
“ ‘Well, Id like to see a stable government that could take care of itself and its people.’ I said, ‘at what price?’ He said, ‘I don’t understand your point.’ I walked away. Then we had an opportunity to take a picture with the president and his wife. I was feeling real good at this point.
“I said to my wife, ‘Honey, just follow my lead.’ She said, ‘Steven, it’s the president.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but he’s not any taller than I am.’ So the cameraman’s here. We’re introduced by a Marine. I said, ‘Mr. President , thank you for coming to Green Bay. My name is Dr. Multimillionaire.That was before the race. Now they call me Doctor Thousandaire. I couldn’t have won without you coming.’”
There's a few other less than flattering excerpts but I'll say this — Kagen went through months of non-stop bashing from President Bush and his hatchet man Karl Rove. He was demonized by the GOP and their flacks and if he took behaved poorly to people who pissed all over his name and reputation, who are we to condemn him? Have most of us walked a mile, let alone a block, in Kagen's shoes?
Unfortunately dems can expect these low class attacks from members of the republican party and that includes guys like Novak and Sykes. But when Wallace sides with Novak and Sykes to take a swipe at a dem who campaigned on the issue of health care, I'm left scratching my head. After reading his rant, I've got to ask, did this guy Wallace ever run for anything? If he did, was it a race in a swing seat where he had to bust his butt to get the word out while being bashed with the typical GOP bunk? Did he put up his own money (as in life savings) only to see it flutter away in a check writing flurry?
Before taking a swipe at Kagen, dem bloggers have a responsibility to at very least pick up the phone to see if they can get the doctor's side of the story.
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UPDATE: Rumor now has it that the whole story was a fake — but man did it ever get traction in the comments section of Novak's story.
UPDATE 2: Wallace, the dem we mentioned in this story, is upset that we ran the story and said we should have googled the situation first to confirm but everything on the internet isn't true. He cites an article from the Appleton Post Crescent that ran which cited a lot of second hand quotes but did not confirm with Kagen himself what happened. We don't normally read the Post Crescent so we don't know if it's a Republican rag like the Waukesha Freeman or not but it does seem odd that they did not confirm anything first hand.
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Jim McGuigan
Jim McGuigan
The story isn’t fake. I have multiple sources who have heard Kagen make these claims, and the Appleton Post Crescent also has a story (http://tinyurl.com/y664jg) citing a couple of firsthand witnesses, along with Kagen’s rather disingenuous response.
A simple Goggle search would have confirmed everything I wrote, Jim. Shame on you for shooting the messenger rather then trying to find out the truth.
You know as well as I do that being seen as petty or vindictive can really hurt a candidate. And insulting someone’s wife is just plain out of bounds in politics. No matter how you feel about Kagen, if he keeps up this sort of thing he’s not likely to win a second term. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that it’s all just an evil Republican plot might feel good, but it isn’t doing Kagen, or the Democratic Party, any favors.
Please correct your post to reflect this.
Russell
I never said it was an evil Republican plot but I read the Appleton Post Crescent story and clearly they didn’t corroborate the story with Kagen. Their information is second hand.
Also, why would the Appleton Post Crescent run with a story they couldn’t directly corroborate? I would expect that to come from the Waukesha Freeman.
I’m not going to go to the mattresses on this one but if you felt that Kagen had really blown it, my point remains valid that you could have called him. You didn’t and your anger comes through in your story. You seem to have felt that Kagen behaved poorly when he met you and yes, that is a story, but I question the validity of the rest of it.
If it did happen as the original The Scene story reported, then why not follow up with the activist him/herself? Would the story not be “local activist alledges…”?
Kagen’s seems a much better joke teller than John Kerry!
If Dems don’t figure out how to keep from flogging themselves and providing endless entertainment for conservatives, we’ll be one nation under health savings plans.
Jim, I know you want to defend Steve Kagen, and I admire that, but continuing to deny the facts in the face of overwhelming evidence is not doing your cause any good.
The Appleton Post-Crescent story is solid. The reporter quotes two eyewitnesses by name, one of whom claims to have an audio recording of Kagen’s comments, and it gave Kagen a chance to rebut, which he basically refused to do. I have multiple independent sources who have heard Kagen say the same sorts of things at other events. Kagen has been interviewed several times and hasn’t denied anything except intentionally insulting Laura Bush (and he didn’t even deny that until this story started getting a lot of national attention).
I could probably get the audio and put it on the web, but do we really want to go there? The facts are not disputable here, and you need to admit that and move on.
No matter how well this sort of stuff plays with the Democratic base, it will hurt Kagen with the general public and reduce his chances of being reelected if it continues. Yes, I’m being hard on him, but that’s what he needs right now, not a bunch of apologists willing to cover for his bad behavior.
I obviously have no great love for Steve Kagen, but we need him in that seat, and if he doesn’t straighten up and pull it together quickly he’s not likely to be there for long.
I’m still more than a little steamed that you did everything but call me a Republican in your post. I don’t take kindly to that sort of thing, and although I’m perfectly willing to settle this publicly on our respective blogs, I think it would be better for all involved if we deal with it privately. Watch for an email from me.
Moral of the story: Once you’ve humiliated Rove in the bathroom, keep it to yourself.