| Yesterday, I linked to the Clay Robison's story about how John Cornyn had politicized Hurricane Dolly. Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin e-mailed Robison informing him that the press release in question had been issued by Cornyn's senate office, not his campaign. McLaughlin seemed to think he was making a relevant point. In reality, however, the relevation seemed to further cement what Robison had written. Clearly partisan messages should not be coming from tax-payer funded offices. John Cornyn's campaign team seems to disagree but I think the people of Texas are with us on this one. Robison also includes in his post a quote from McLaughlin that seems to threaten the reporter with limited access to Cornyn if he continues with his ... well, fair and accurate reporting. Here's part of Robison's post: Fortunately, the levees held against the flood waters, but political anger was gushing from the Cornyn camp today. It seems the e-mail wasn't sent by the Republican senator's campaign, but by Cornyn's official, taxpayer-funded office in Washington. "Your inability to tell the difference between the two is very disconcerting," sputtered Cornyn's campaign spokesman Kevin McLaughlin in an e-mail. Disconcerting? Perhaps. But it often is difficult to tell the difference between Cornyn's campaign handouts and his official pronouncements, particularly since the official messages (the ones we taxpayers pay for) are headed by Cornyn's name in big letters against a background of those favorite campaign colors -- red, white and blue. And the message had partisan overtones. By addressing the Senate's Democratic leader, Cornyn's office seemed to be trying to blame the Democrats for underfunding the levee system, when, in fact, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have failed to adequately protect thousands of Valley residents from disastrous flooding. "Your mistakes have consequences," McLaughlin said. So does congressional hand-sitting.
In the last 36 hours, John Cornyn and his employees have politicized a dangerous hurricane and threatened a reporter. What's next? |
