Raising Kaine: "graffiti off the underside of an underpass"

A post today at Raising Kaine, which must be "official" because it was promoted by Feld, enthusiastically supports the credibility of Karen S. Johnson-Cartee, from Alabama, speaking of Hugo quoting from a diary found at www. raisingkaine . com:

To me, it is like quoting graffiti off the underside of an underpass and using it in a political ad," she said

Of course, RK misrepresents much of what is in the article. Not surprisingly, Feld himself confused a Washington Post reporter so much that the reporter thought Feld was claiming that Raising Kaine speaks for the Governor:

By attributing the ad to Raising Kaine, Feld said, Hugo wants voters to think Kaine opposes Simmons's candidacy. Kaine has endorsed Simmons.

Other misrepresentations? Their title suggests Karen attacked Tim Hugo personally, but here is what she said:

Karen S. Johnson-Cartee, a political science professor at the University of Alabama who has written several books on negative television ads, said Hugo's ad "means we have sunk to a new low."

Further, while they accurately quote people from the article, most of them gave opinions based on a faulty premise that the quotes were from an unknown source. For example, a Democratic Party operative said:

Gary Nordlinger, a Democratic consultant and past chairman of the American Association of Political Consultants ethics committee, said unnamed comments on blogs should be off-limits.

and:

"In political advertising, you always have to have a source, and that source has to be credible," said Sean T. O'Brien, executive director of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.

It's not surprising those quoted had the wrong idea, because the story has been repeated with that false claim that the quotes were from an anonymous commenter. That's what the Raising Kaine blog first charged.

But they were the ones being misleading. We know exactly who the source was, it was not an unnamed anonymouse source, but someone who was directly involved in the primary involving Rex, and who spoke with authority. The source WAS credible, being on the campaign of a competitor to Rex in that primary. The Washington Post knows who the source was, but failed to get a comment from the source. And of course Lowell wouldn't confirm it, althought he knows who it was.

This person, Nate de la Piedra, can't be dismissed as some crazy anonymous commenter. He had regular diary entries, he's active in the Democratic party, and is the executive director of Next Generation Democrats.

We can see here of course the connection between the liberal blogs and their helpers at the WP. How many times last year did we see negative stories circulate in these blogs, followed by favorable front-page articles citing those blogs from the Washington Post? But here the Post couldn't work the magic. But they sure tried.