With the revelation in today's Washington Post that Chris Shays was one of the main beneficiaries of Karl Rove's "Asset Deployment" strategy of sending senior Administration officials around the country to bolster the chances of politically vulnerable Republicans, it's worth revisiting Shays' performance during the testimony of GSA Administrator Lurita Doan in June's House Government Oversight Committee hearings:
Here are just a few of the cloying rhetorical defenses of Doan provided by Shays during the hearing:
Ms. Doan, I think you're a remarkable person. I think you're a beautiful person. I regret that you've been treated the way that you've been treated....
...And I don't care what the press thinks about what I'm going to say or anybody else. I just want to say to you, you are a remarkable person. And you have been attacked and attacked and attacked. And you have held your head up high....
...There has got to be a point where this hearing is ending, and if anything, owe her an apology for what you put her through....
...You know what? I just want to thank you for your service. I hope it doesn't discourage other people like you to get into this. And I will say this to you, I find it -- and this is my own view -- but I find it when an African-American happens to be a Republican, somehow she is treated differently by Congress, and unfairly so....
Doan was, of course, in front of the committee to defend her violation of the Hatch Act for, in part, using federal government resources to act on the political directives of Karl Rove and help out a list of endangered GOP incumbents in battleground districts.
Now we find out that in the last six months of the campaign last year, also through the manipulations of Rove, Shays received seven visits from Administration officials for "official" purposes as flimsy and ridiculous as presenting a Norwalk school with a $23 weather radio. (Photo of actual radio below.)
Meanwhile, guess who happened to be on Rove's list of endangered Republicans?
No wonder Shays thought Doan was a "remarkable person" who was owed an "apology" for being "unfairly treated" by Democrats in the committee based on her race.
What drama! What passion! And what a coincidence that Shays should be one of Lurita Doan's most dogged defenders!
Virtually the entirety of the federal government becomes co-opted as an arm of the Republican political machine, and gosh if it isn't aimed at reelecting the people best positioned to muddy the waters of an investigation into just such a violation of law. Glory be!
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