Demand your apology TODAY from Joe Lieberman

Here's my letter (0.00 / 0)

I'll be calling at a more decent hour today, but here's the letter that I'm sending (with a hat tip to the amazing mattw for editing for brevity...obviously, I'm not so good with that when I write in the middle of the night!)

Dear Senator Lieberman,

The Stamford Advocate reported on December 20, 2006 that Federal and State investigations found no evidence to support your primary-day charges against the Lamont campaign and its internet-based supporters with respect to your campaign website, joe2006.com. It appears that your office has thus far refused comment on this matter.

By claiming in news releases, interviews, and your widely-covered election-night speech that your political opposition broke the law in an attempt to suppress voter participation, your campaign falsely and baselessly maligned the ethics and reputations of hundreds of Connecticut residents. To do so with absolutely no evidence to substantiate these serious allegations demonstrated a reckless disregard for truth and decency and amounts to a breach of public trust.

As one of your constituents, a Lamont supporter, and someone who wrote on blogs as a volunteer supporter of Ned Lamont in the primary campaign, I take the charges issued by your campaign on that date quite seriously. As I was unfairly and publicly maligned, I expect a personal apology on behalf of yourself and your campaign. You may deliver your personal apology to me at the address below.

Likewise, the widespread purposeful dissemination of your false accusations harmed the reputations of all Connecticut bloggers – all constituents of yours – and I'd expect you to issue a public apology and correct the public record with the same vigor and thoroughness you and your organization summoned to distribute the original falsehood.

Given the length of time that has passed since you and your campaign publicized these unfounded accusations, you have a responsibility to issue these apologies without delay.  I will appreciate your very prompt response.

Sincerely,

Maura Keaney

I'll let you know when I receive a response.

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by: Maura @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 04:27:18 AM CST

Jepsen's comment seriously misses the mark (0.00 / 0)

I'm a big fan of George Jepsen and all of his potholders.  (If you're from Stamford, you'd get it.)  He was a huge asset to the Lamont campaign and I'm grateful for all of his support for Ned.

About this story, though, I think his comment was seriously off the mark:

Jepsen said he did not believe the Lieberman campaign's attempts to link Lamont to the crashed Web site had an effect on the general election.

"I think it was just a tiny blip on a very large radar screen," Jepsen said. "It just shows when people get in the middle of a campaign, anything that goes wrong they assume is deliberate sabotage by the other side."

The Lieberman campaign's baseless claims unquestionably had an impact on the general election.  While we prevailed on primary night, Lieberman's unfounded accusations controlled the media narrative all day on primary day and forced us to be on the defensive.  On primary night, Lieberman continued to harp on about his "hacked" web site during his widely televised speech, and the Lieberman camp's unfounded accusations on radio, TV, and in print about the alleged hacking clearly continued to be discussed after primary day.

In talking to hundreds of voters during the general election, I found many who mentioned the alleged hacking (accepting Lieberman's claims as fact) as part of their overall impression that Ned was running a negative campaign.  For many who really started paying attention to the Senate race on primary day (during which the whole Connecticut radio and TV scene were saturated with Lamont/Lieberman primary stories, the vast majority of which were about the false hacking charges), Lieberman's false accusations stuck and became part of their overall impressions of Ned and his supporters.

I'm not suggesting that this one factor singularly cost us the election.  But it was an important facet of the Lieberman campaign's overall strategy to paint Ned and us as negative, and it stuck.

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by: Maura @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 04:45:19 AM CST

I agree on Jepsen comment -- out of context? Hard to know. (0.00 / 0)

Maura, can you check with George to see if his quote is out of context?  I mean, we do know who we're dealing with.

In any case, if it's an accurate quote, I don't think it's appropriate to take a remark that was directed not only at Ned Lamont, the campaign, but also at general SUPPORTERS (see the Susan Haigh story, e.g.) and dismiss the impact as having no bearing the election outcome.  Even it it was a remark about the campaign, we need to support a fair electoral process and discourse -- not just support a fair electoral process & discourse when it benefits our candidate.

Maybe it speaks to George's long years in politics and deciding when to go to bat for something, but the effect of the Lieberman campaign's vendetta and libelous comments has the potential to go outside the election to people who make their living using computers.  I felt the impact of being a "punching bag for Lamont" at the polls in Nov and it wasn't fun or pretty to feel the effect of the "negative" perception, which was way off base from the kind of person and candidate Ned Lamont is and was. 

I think the FBI and OAG ought to have been basing their investigation speed on the POTENTIAL to impact an election, and vigorously assuring that facts get out so voters can make a choice.  And I want to know what DID happen, because it's relevant - did Marion Steinfels know she was lying? That one would be hard to prove, but I would expect the FBI should investigate that, too.  Maybe a new complaint is needed, framing it for them since they apparently can't frame that part of the investigation theemselves (prove me wrong, FBI.  I'd love it and welcome it.)

More clarity about the FBI's actions is needed to understand whether they were acting in a politicized way (by not acting and by covering up Lieberman's illegal actions) or whether they were acting to protect citizens and the country and democracy.  (POGO:  We have met the enemy and he is us)

MSMS owes a mea culpa for bad coverage that had potential to affect an election.  But in my book, an apology is not permission to do it again.

I think you're exactly right that you can't take this one incident alone and analyze its effect; it was part of the whole construct to delegitimize a very honest man running an ethical campaign.  When they were in the midst of some pretty unethical stuff themselves, they had to manufacture evidence of unethical behavior because there wasn't any.

The devil is securely ensconced in the details.  Most don't have time to bother with them.  But I kinda find it has its merits.  Each piece of the puzzle, carefully fit into place, will yield the bigger picture.  Patience and thoroughness will pay off.

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by: greenpeas @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 06:43:49 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Yeah, furthermore... (0.00 / 0)

...the last part of Jepsen's quote is in some ways even more troubling than the first:

"It just shows when people get in the middle of a campaign, anything that goes wrong they assume is deliberate sabotage by the other side."

I think that is, first of all, being far too charitable and forgiving to the Lieberman camp for a very deliberate campaign to assign responsibility to Ned Lamont without any evidence.

Even worse, though, it implies that the Lamont campaign (and any campaign) would do the same thing in the face of "anything that goes wrong".

I can think of a dozen times when things went wrong in my part of our campaign and I never once thought to accuse the Lieberman campaign of sabotage.  The day of our first debate in Stamford, we ran our debate war room out of the Stamford DTC office.  The office's wireless router went kaput just before the debate started, causing major problems for us.  The router continued to be a problem for days, causing hassles for our campaign as well as the other campaigns who shared that space.

This was a major problem and it occurred in a space that used to be a Lieberman office and involved a piece of equipment that, I believe, was also used by the Lieberman campaign in the primary.  And yet it never even occured to me that the Lieberman camp sabotaged it (and I strongly doubt it occurred to anyone else).

Accusing your opponents of sabotage is not a reasonable campaign's response to adversity.  I can't think of a single example of the Lamont campaign doing that.

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by: Maura @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 06:54:16 AM CST

[ Parent ]

we can afford outrage. people who want to run again perhaps can't. (0.00 / 0)

Look at Kerry, look at Gore, the "sore loser" meme is what they're afraid of.  So perhaps George is doing what the campaign must do.  Us'ns who are not the official campaign (or in your case, not anymore) may have a different role to play.

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by: greenpeas @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 11:07:27 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Joe's email... (0.00 / 0)

Joe's email address is worse than useless.

It's a completely automated system, with the response determined solely by the subject chosen (and you MUST choose from the drop down list to send an email).

My guess is that no one actually reads any of the email sent. Joe doesn't give a hoot what his constituents think, why should his staff?

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by: BranfordBoy @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 11:04:02 AM CST

alternatives: count them, weigh them (0.00 / 0)

If he's like Shays, it'll  take months to get an answer and then you get a typical highly massaged message. 

If he's like Jeb, it'll be sent back to you (Common Cause recently tried to set up a mass mailing to Jeb and Jeb's email was bounced back to all senders.)

All I can remember about emailing Joe is that at some point I decided to take my name off his mailing list since I was so incensed.

Reminds me of trying to find a way to contact UPSseveral years ago about their service - that was not one of the options they offered!  May I suggest "campaigns/elections"?

there is no dropdown for "unethical and/or illegal activity".

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by: greenpeas @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 11:13:45 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Has anyone else called Sen. Lieberman's office? (0.00 / 0)

I called the Hartford number and spoke with a very nice woman named Cynthia. 

Her initial response was, "Senator Lieberman has not released a statement on that issue at this time."

I then told her my background as a volunteer supporter of Ned Lamont in the primary, someone who along with other online supporters of Lamont had been accused of this federal crime by the Lieberman campaign.  I said I would like an apology and gave her my name and address.

Cynthia said very nicely that the comment she was leaving was that I wanted to know if Sen. Lieberman would be making an apology.  I clarified that I wrote for a blog, and as someone who, with other bloggers, had been collectively maligned by his campaign, and so I wanted a personal apology as well.

Cynthia's response, totally priceless, was "What's a blog?"

I kid you not!

I simply explained that a blog was a kind of web site and that I was just a volunteer in the primary, working as a teacher at the time, and that I wrote on web sites as a hobby about the race.

I didn't give her any shit; it's not her fault what Lieberman's camp did in the primary.  I wished her a Merry Christmas.

I hope she (or whoever else answers the phone) is hearing a lot of other comments!  I got just an automated robo-response from Lieberman online, but I'll be following up with more calls to Lieberman's office if we don't get an apology as days pass.

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by: Maura @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 14:56:32 PM CST

Sent to the website under 'corporate accountability' (4.00 / 1)

Senator Lieberman,

  I would appreciate an immediate apology. During the campaign, you accused Ned Lamont supporters of the criminal behavior of hacking your website. I supported the Lamont campaign through on-line internet work. I was one of your constitutants who you had accused, without proof, of a serious federal crime.

The Attorney Generals' office has now determined that the Lamont campaign had nothing to do with the 'denial of service' your website experienced.

As an online supporter and volunteer campaign blogger for Ned Lamont, I would appreciate an apology sent to the above e-mail and home addresses.

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by: Sue @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 15:33:46 PM CST

I just called the 800, getting voice mail as I expected (0.00 / 0)

I said I was calling about the supposed hacking of candidate Liberman's website and the accusation that the Lamont campaign and its supporters were responsible.  I asked for an apology to the Campaign from the Senator.  I related that, as a known supporter of Lamont and known to be active online, I was ribbed at work the next day by folks who thought perhaps I would have been arrested by now.  I promised in this message that if the Senator apologized to me for wrongly accusing us, I would apologize for replying to my coworkers "Oh, that's just those Lying Sacks of Shit running Lieberman's campaign. Don't believe anything they say."  Of course, in my message, I was fibbing about me apologizing!

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by: joemustgo @ Thu Dec 21, 2006 at 19:48:15 PM CST