The Caucus has the story of PhoneyFred.org, a website traced to operatives associated with the Romney campaign. It’s yet another tale of intrigue (involving, as dirty tricks so often seem to do, South Carolina) and the incompetence of people who don’t realize how easy it is to trace who’s behind a website. Or maybe they don’t care. The site has been taken down, but a screengrab shows that it included a picture of TRF’s own favorite picture of Hollywood Fred looking all dolled up. And The Caucus provides us a taste of the text, courtesy of a cached version of the site:
Now that Fred has decided that wants to run the country (for real this time), we figured it was about time that we did a little research into what Fred Thompson (not Arthur Branch) really stands for.
One of the first articles that we ran across had this quote in it that pretty much sums up why we’re here: “Evidence that Thompson worked for a family-planning group in 1991 as part of his little-known but extensive portfolio as a part-time lobbyist underscores how much the public has yet to learn about the former senator, who is best known for acting in movies and on TV, especially his role as a district attorney on the popular show ‘Law & Order.’”
You’re probably in the same boat – you can’t get the theme to Law and Order out of your head, but can you name one thing that Fred did during his eight years in the United States Senate?
Read on, because Fred Thompson has learned a lot of from his days in Hollywood…
Here’s a cached version of a page on “Flip-Flop Fred,” for your amusement.
And yes, we note the wonderful irony of Mitt Romney attacking another candidate for being a phoney. When he ran against Ted Kennedy did he attack the Democrat for being from Massachusetts?
Update: As per commenter nate, this is from the AP:
The Web site, PhoneyFred.org, was created by Wesley Donehue, a business associate of Warren Tompkins, a South Carolina political operative on the Romney payroll and the candidate’s top adviser in the early voting state.
The site was created without the knowledge of Tompkins or Romney, said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden. After the campaign received media inquiries about it, Romney aides traced the site to Donehue and complained. It was taken offline on Monday.
Though cynical me can’t help but think that plausible deniability is a wonderful thing.
5 Responses to “Phoney vs. Phoney”
The AP says the site was created by an independent author named donehue and was disavowed by Romney’s campaign.
I saw the story on PhoneyFred yesterday. Interesting how the mud is flying already. Just wondered if you’d seen this in Big Head Dc:
http://bigheaddc.com/2007/09/0.....your-back/
I’d also note that before the Washington Post nailed Romney for the PhoneyFred site, the Thompson blog’s first suspect was Giuliani and his newly hired consultant, Scott Howell:
http://www.blogsforfredthompso.....ott-howell
Makes you wonder if Howell is behind the abrad2345 ads, but didn’t have anything to do with PhoneyFred. After all, one of the last abrad ads linked Fred to Larry Craig scandal. Right culprit, wrong prank?
Commenter Nate also tried the same line on my blog posting on PhoneyFred.org. Another example of Romney astroturfing?
[...] Phoney vs. Phoney [...]
Something to say?
[...] Phoney vs. Phoney [...]
Left by The Right’s Field » Thompson's Lawyering-For-Hire Gets Him Into Trouble Again
September 11, 2007 at 11:40am