You take the kid to the doctor and all hell breaks loose (Winchester-Loudoun-Richmond Version)!

Where do I begin?

Perhaps the disclosure is a good place to start: Shaun is a friend of mine. I actually met him in person before we interacted in the blogosphere. He’s not perfect (then again, neither am I), but he’s always been a good friend to me. So, to some extent, I take this a little more personally than most of the rest of the blogosphere.

Ben Tribbett (a.k.a. Not Larry Sabato) is insisting that Shaun was part of a broad conspiracy to smear and ruin Republican Senate Candidate (27th District) Mark Tate. Here is Ben’s timeline of events (as he sees them). Virginia Virtucon has weighed in, as has Charlie Jackson at Leesburg Today. It is the latter who, however unintentionally, contradicts and undermines Ben’s story.

This is how Ben describes Shaun’s actions (emphasis added):

May 2nd- Shaun Kenney (RPV Communications Director) leaks to me that Ed Gillespie, Ken Cuccinelli, and Mike Farris all have asked Mark Tate to drop out if his indicted. He also gives me the date of May 22nd when Tate will be indicted. I put the update to this post up (no names crossed out at the time- see below for why)

. . .

May 2nd, 7:39 p.m.- Shaun, not knowing I had already talked to the Cooch, sent me this email: “A little birdie says that if Ken is asked point blank if he advised Tate to back out, he’ll confirm”

. . .

May 3rd (Office Hours)- I call Shaun Kenney back in response to his email and tell him I already talked to the Cooch and that he made no such call

. . .

May 30th (Afternoon)- Local media contacts Shaun Kenney and he denies speaking to me since the “anti-semitic flyer” and “macaca” last year. He especially denies talking to me on May 2nd.

May 30th (Evening)- I forward emails showing he was lying about that contact.

May 31st- Kenney’s story changed when reporter calls him back.

May 31st- Article comes out around 5 p.m. with numerous quotes showing differences in Kenney’s story between the yesterday and today.

Sounds pretty damning, except that Shaun never made any such denials. Here’s what the Leesburg Today reported that Shaun originally said on May 30th (emphasis added):

On Wednesday, Kenney denied having any contact with Tribbett, who operates the Web site Not Larry Sabato, concerning the investigation into Tate.

In other words, Shaun only denied talking to Ben about the Tate probe, he did not claim he wasn’t on any speaking terms with Ben. Thus, Ben’s supposed rebuttal e-mail doesn’t rebut anything – and once again, we can see that in the same Leesburg Today piece (emphasis added):

But an e-mail, provided by Tribbett, indicates Kenney communicated with that blogger on May 2 concerning Tate. That e-mail from Kenney to Tribbett, which Kenney acknowledged Thursday, suggests that a “birdie” said state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-37) would confirm for Tribbett that he had called and asked Tate to withdraw from the senate race. Kenney declined to say Thursday who his “birdie” was.

The importance of this paragraph (which followed immediately the citation directly above it) is what was not mentioned. Nowhere did the LT’s Charlie Jackson write that the e-mail predicted an indictment date; neither was a mention of the probe reported to be in this e-mail. I find it hard to believe that Jackson, if he had evidence revealing Shaun has talked about the actual investigation (which would contradict Shaun’s denial), would keep it to himself or cloud it in this verbiage.

In other words, the e-mail in question almost certainly does not discuss any particulars of the investigation, and thus Shaun’s denial has not been contradicted, and what is more, Shaun did not change his story. Ben’s generating a lot of smoke, but there is no fire here.

Meanwhile, Ben managed to make a huge mistake on this earlier this week, claiming that Russ Potts (the outgoing Senator in the 27th) “just made an endorsement” for Tate’s Republican primary opponent (Jill Holtzman-Vogel) by calling on Tate to withdraw. In fact, three days after Ben made that post, Potts made abundantly clear that he did not endorse Holtzman-Vogel (Washington Post – emphasis added):

Potts says he is considering endorsing a Democrat to replace him.

That’s hardly an endorsement of Ms. Holtzman-Vogel.

Now, I’m not prepared to cast aspersion on Ben – yet – but he does have a checkered history when it comes to the facts. Perhaps he’s reading too much into this e-mail (that’s my guess, since the reporter himself didn’t read as much into it as Ben did); perhaps VV is right in claiming that Ben “is looking to take down RPV and Shaun Kenney all in an effort to advance an opportunity for Democrats to win a state senate seat.” What I do know is that Ben has, to date, shown nothing that would impugn Shaun’s integrity (let alone finger Shaun as a part of this supposed anti-Tate conspiracy), and if Ben has anything else he isn’t revealing, he’d best do so now, or post a retraction ASAP.

You take the kid to the doctor and all hell breaks loose (Valley Version)!

Well, the Hanger people apparently learned all the wrong lessons from last year.

Their latest attempt to drag Hanger across the finish line now apparently includes digging up info on Scott Sayre’s wife, and using a blogger (namely, Myron Rhodes) to get the information out. Moreover, when an outside blogger (Virginia Virtucon) calls him on it, Myron resorts to physical threats.

How could it come to this?

Now, I learned my politics in New Jersey, where the only rule of politics is: if you believe in rules, you’ve already lost. So I’m not really surprised that this has come out in said fashion, but Myron’s response to criticism tells me this really is an act of desperation. The surprising part is that Hanger, or his people, or just Myron, actually believe this will work.

Folks, I can’t emphasize this enough, but blogs do not and likely will not ever have this kind of power. At best, we can comment on campaign, call out erroneous and biased reporting, or present new arguments and angles. Too many bloggers have ambitions of being reporters; when in fact, the pundit is the model we should follow.

Instead, everyone wants to be this year’s “macaca” blogger; never mind that there wasn’t a “macaca” blogger last year (as I’ve said earlier, anyone who still thinks the blogs carried that story must never have heard of the Washington Post).

As for yours truly, my endorsement of Sayre still stands. The travails of Mrs. Sayre do not erase Emmett Hanger’s votes for higher taxes. Scott Sayre is better on the issues, period.

I am a witness

At some point today, I will (or at least I hope I will) comment on the various nuttiness that descended upon the primaries in the 24th and 27th districts, but I would be remiss as a basketball fan to stay silent on last night’s Cavs-Pistons game.

In a word: unbelievable.

With just under two and a half minutes to go, the Pistons had a four point lead (84-88); from there, LeBron James went on a 7-3 run to tie it.

That’s right, LeBron, all by himself, scored the seven points Cleveland needed.

The legend grew in the two overtime periods. In the first, the Pistons scored nine, and LeBron scored nine.

That’s right, LeBron, all by himself, scored the nine points Cleveland needed to stay in the game.

In the second overtime, LeBron scored nine again, in the following fashion:

A fadeaway twenty-footer (yes, you read that right) with a hand in his face . . .

A behind-the-back dribble to create space for a twenty-two-footer with Chauncy Billups still recovering in time to put a hand in his face . . .

A fadeaway three-pointer while he was triple-teamed . . .

. . . and finally, with the score tied at 107, LeBron drove through four defenders for a layup that would be the final points of the game.

Final: Cleveland 109, Detroit 107

For the last 12:18 of the game, equivalent to just over a regulation quarter, LeBron scored all of his team’s twenty-five points, and outscored the Pistons by himself - in fact, all by himself – by a score of 25-19.

I now believe (despite all logic screaming to the contrary) that LeBron and the Cavs could win a championship this year. Yes, I’m saying he can beat San Antonio. No, I don’t know how; then again, I still don’t know how he did it least night.

Fact is, LeBron could be on the court with me, Shuan Kenney, Ben Tribbett, and Waldo Jacquith as the starting five, and we’d still make the playoffs.

He’s that good folks.

He’s that good.