Rep. McCarthy & Rep. Ellmers. It became our business Kevin when you decided to run to be 2nd in line to the Presidency.
I
posted in several diaries about McCarty's alleged affair with NC Rep. (R) Renee Ellmers as the real cause behind McCarty's withdrawl from consideration for Speaker of the House. It's a subject that makes people squeamish, and often Democrats are quick to dismiss "sex" things as being private and not anyone's business outside of the consenting adults. Those people would be wrong, and probably never served in the military or held positions in intelligence. Had they, they'd know sexual black mail is among the oldest and most powerful tools of the enemy.
So, it's not about the sex or the privacy of one's marital struggles. Let's get that out of the way now. It is about the risk to national security for black mail. In fact, what WE might think has zero to do with the problem. Rather, it's what the person being blackmailed thinks and what he or she is willing to do to hide it. Change a pivotal vote? Look the other way when a crime is committed? Frame someone? Provide a subsidy? Lie? Cheat? Steal? Why do you think extortion and black mail are crimes?
You think an affair is not something that one could be blackmailed with? Well, it knocked out McCarthy today. He wanted to keep it under wraps so badly he voluntarily ended his own political career. And in a move I insist was to keep reporters from asking uncomfortable questions at his press conference, he had his wife and kids at his side. One question did come, referencing the letter Rep. Jones sent to Rep. Morris about how people with "misdeeds" should not pursue the Speakership.
McCarthy began the day ready for the vote and still charging towards the speakership. This is, until about 8 AM he received an email from GOP mega donor Steve Baer.
The subject line: “Kevin, why not resign like Bob Livingston?”
The email, sent just after 8 a.m. on Thursday, came from Steve Baer, a Chicago-based GOP donor known for mass-emailing conservative figures and Republican lawmakers. It was addressed to McCarthy and numerous others, including the personal account of Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), who conservative media sites have suggested is tied romantically to McCarthy...
...In the email, Baer linked to a Washington Examiner story published earlier Thursday with the headline: “Specter of sex scandal injected into GOP leadership race.” The article referenced Jones’ letter in the context of Speaker-elect Bob Livingston abruptly resigning in 1998 following a sex scandal.
Moments later McCarthy bowed out, much to the mock shock of reporters, who largely have known about this for months. Yes, the same reporters who ignored Edwards's affair, who made it within a whisker of the Democratic nomination, and thus the presidency. Imagine had he made it while the affair was still secret. The sex or the affairs are themselves immaterial, its the damaging secret that some might do a great many things to keep hidden.
Halperine posted a cryptic tweet today, or at least cryptic to those who are playing inside baseball:
That time everyone in politics & journalism knew what happened and readers/viewers/listeners were left in the dark.
3:48 PM - 8 Oct 2015
Notice another problem there? Our Constitution expects our journalists to inform the People, not to be the Keepers of the Keys for the powerful.
If you are Joe or Jane Public Citizen, I don't give a shit about who you are sleeping with and cheaters are not the dominion of one party -- we are all human. I even understand how this could happen. These representatives work closely together with other passionate people in times of stress. As Jeb! says (more appropriately used) "Stuff happens." But, when you take a position critical to national security, I've a right to care.
The HuffPost article linked to above the blockquoted text above diary's opening sentence covers this all pretty well, and those of us who had read about this months ago could see it clearly playing out on camera today. Various Rightwing sitesand comment threads had put this out there for months and the press has sat on it. That was fine when McCarty was not running for Speaker, but once he pulled that trigger, the press should have blown the whistle for national security reasons. Instead, the national press -- to whom this was an open secret -- all went on camera and lied to our faces about the motivation or feigning confusion for McCarty's decision, instead of telling us straight. Let's even forget about the newsworthy angle of "family values" conservatives living lives in complete mockery of the "values" they try to shove down our throats. Media has a responsibility to the body politic not to put us all at risk.
Common media already has reduced politics to a game, so few Americans understand the Constitutional seriousness of what's going on now. Now, faced with a real crisis, it has chosen to lie to the People for the reasons, even still covering for power at our expense.
Thu Oct 08, 2015 at 7:30 PM PT: Did I mention.....it's not about the sex!!! Stop fixating about the sex for Pete's sake. It's about the risk of blackmail or extortion. The affair is just a vehicle for extortion. It could have been anything the person might want to keep hidden. The inability of some to get past the sex part makes me worry about the level of cognition of some of you. Good gosh.
Thu Oct 08, 2015 at 7:59 PM PT: One last point before shut eye...Even if you don't think it's any big deal, guess what, it just changed the entire political landscape in the House and has thrown one of the two major parties into chaos, and thus the entire legislative agenda -- including routine items you never hear about -- in disarray. McCarthy was willing for the nation to be put through this, just to keep it out of the public eye.
5:15 AM PT: The press can no longer pretend. Now the Media has to cover it to avoid acknowledging its role in this mess. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Poster wesmorgan1 helps make the point maybe better than I have: