Dave Weigel of Slate has stepped in it in humiliating fashion. Just two days ago, parroting the preferred line of the Democratic Party, Weigel implied that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was fibbing about his office being bugged in order to avoid questions about a campaign insider tape run by Mother Jones. “Mitch McConnell Won’t Stop Saying That the Left Was ‘Bugging’ His Campaign Office,” Weigel snarked in the headline.
“Right now there’s no evidence that reveals the origin of the tape–whether it was produced by bugging (which is illegal) or a recording from an errant staffer (less illegal). But this is McConnell’s fight back story.”
It now turns out that Jacob Convway of the Jefferson County Democratic Party reported to local media that McConnell’s office was indeed illegally recorded by the anti-McConnell group Progress Kentucky, Weigel’s use of scare quotes notwithstanding.
On Thursday, Weigel reported these developments at Slate:
If you’re a fan of political jujitsu and political jackassery, the Mitch McConnell/Mother Jones story has taken on the dimensions of a classic…. What had been a pretty lame package of revelations from a tape became a much better story about the possible illegal taping of a campaign office. (The lameness argued against the theory that a McConnell campaign mole had leaked it. Why blow your wad on 12 minutes of staffers making fun of a candidate who’d dropped out already?)
Then, with no sense of irony, Weigel added, “At his Tuesday press conference, McConnell blamed ‘the left’ for ‘bugging’ his office, and he was right.” Naturally, Weigel then proceeded to explain why Republicans were overstepping in their coverage of the story.
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