August 8, 2015

"A Michigan lawmaker had an email sent to his Republican supporters falsely claiming he had been caught having sex with a male prostitute..."

"... apparently believing such a smear campaign would help distract attention from an alleged extramarital affair between him and another lawmaker...."
The Detroit News... obtained two recordings secretly made in May by a former aide of state Rep. Todd Courser, a tea party-backed social conservative from Lapeer. In the recordings, Courser asks the aide, Ben Graham, to email Republican activists and operatives from an anonymous account to create "a complete smear campaign" about him....

22 comments:

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

A better way to distract with a smear would be to put out a nice party tray of bagels.

Matt Sablan said...

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Once written, twice... said...

Hahahahahahahaha! The Tea Party and Republican Party has lost all credibility! Long live Donald Trump!

Michael K said...

"The Tea Party and Republican Party has lost all credibility! Long live Donald Trump!"

One of the Perot voters I mentioned in the previous thread.

JCC said...

@ Once -

This seems to do less with party politics and more to do with human frailty. They are both morons for believing such a stupid ploy would actually work, although one might hope they were more concerned with hurting innocent family members than with damaging their careers. That might be naive though.

I wonder if we'll find out who was threatening them with exposure, and if that person was acting out of personal animus or political reasoning, in which case your blanket condemnation of Republicans might be misplaced.

Phil 314 said...

Harkens back to Ed Edwards famous dictum:

"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy".

Phil 314 said...

I wonder if the phrase "tea party backed" has gone past its sell by date.

Once written, twice... said...

I hope other homophobic bigots are exposed for their hypocrisies! Pass the popcorn!

Once written, twice... said...

These two are truly the face of today's conservative movement. It is all built on bigotry and hypocrisy.

Nichevo said...

This seems to excite you unduly, Once.

Dr. K, Perot? This one is a classic rabid leftist, surely.

David said...

Two Christian Conservative Republicans. She is in her first term (legislatively speaking.) Cue the idiots who think that Christians profess to be free of sin.

Michael K said...

"These two are truly the face of today's conservative movement. It is all built on bigotry and hypocrisy."

Yes, logic and intelligence are just as you describe. Whereas your party is all feelings and pearl clutching.

Michael K said...

"Dr. K, Perot? This one is a classic rabid leftist, surely."

A lot of the original Perot voters were somewhere between the left and Pat Buchanan. Two extremes.

Anonymous said...

Once bitten, you should have opted for the rabies shot.

Marc in Eugene said...

Doesn't she look a bit Leslie Knope-ish? in any case, adultery, lying, stupidity: just the tags suffice.

n.n said...

David:

Christians are the first to profess they are tempted, but are striving to follow a superior moral paradigm. The question then becomes how society should accommodate confession and repentance. The prevailing moral perspective is a pro-choice or selective doctrine that has corrupted both the law and culture. Whether it is selective-child, selective exclusion, "open" relationships, etc., the sanctimonious hypocrisy is rife and progressive.

Chuck said...

For those of us here in Michigan, it is surprising to see this story of so little consequence get the national play it is getting.

Todd Courser is indeed a Tea Party Republican. And he's been making a lot of noise in Lansing on conservative issues, but very little by way of substance, with a governor who embodies "moderation" far more than Scott Walker and at least as much (if not more) than John Kasich.

What's particularly flummoxing is to see the national attention poured onto Courser, when Courser's legislative colleague, state senator Virgil Smith (D-Detroit) is currently facing three felony charges for firing a .22 caliber rifle into the automobile of his ex-wife when she came to his home and found him with another woman some weeks ago. That might not be so outlandish for Detroit's Democratic politics, except that now Smith seems to be making a mental incapacity plea of some kind in his defense. The Smith story involves a far more serious crime, and much more socially bizarre/deviant behavior, than the Courser story.

But the Virgil Smith story cannot be found on any national media outlet. While the Todd Courser story has gone far enough to reach the attention of Professor Althouse in another state.

Chuck said...

David said...
Two Christian Conservative Republicans. She is in her first term (legislatively speaking.) Cue the idiots who think that Christians profess to be free of sin.


Every good Christian I know professes to be a sinner, seeking salvation through the teaching of Christ and above all in their faith. Every Christian service I have ever attended begins with a confession of our sins and a prayer for forgiveness. None are without sin.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

There was an episode of Star Trek TOS where two planets had made warfare so clean that their societies had become dependent upon it and they had no incentive to make peace.

Still, there was a kind of ritualized display of sadness when the computer indicated that the other side had launched a successful attack.

Chuck said...

Silly me. I just realized why Althouse and the national media are so fond of the Courser story. It's because he seems to have directed the fabrication of a story about gay sex, and he's a strong traditional-marriage proponent in Michigan.

Of course, there is an entire website (several websites?) devoted to carefully cataloging all of the fabricated hate-crime-hoaxes over the recent years:

http://www.fakehatecrimes.org/

Meanwhile, the Detroit Free Press (one of the most reliably Democratic party organs in all of American print) gets all huffy about the misuse of official email and hypocrisy:

http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/08/07/gamrat-courser-sex-scandal/31316711/









Hillary Clinton email. Wiped servers. Destroyed hard copies.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I am a conservative because I long ago determined that it was best to think of all politicians as hypocrites, liars, etc.

Bobby said...

Terry,

"I am a conservative because I long ago determined that it was best to think of all politicians as hypocrites, liars, etc."

Classic liberals and libertarians tend to think the same way, that's why they don't want those politicians making decisions about what substances they can drink/smoke/eat, whom they couple with or how they have sex, and prefer that law enforcement powers be much more limited vis a vis an individual's right to privacy. They don't really understood how conservatives can profess the great evil and/or incompetence of politicians in government, and then turn around and be the first to champion it playing an interventionist role in a great number of social issues.