Serving up the bull, er, ball

Conservative blogger Jessica McBride joins the chorus of Republicans desperately trying to spin the Jack Abramoff scandal into a Democratic problem and claim it's the Democrats having a bad week. Numerous posts and stories have shot these efforts down in the past. Since she is short on facts, she starts using a tennis theme to help hide the real stories. She has to work so hard to sell this stuff that you can hear the Monica Seles like grunts as McBride tries to get her 'facts' over the net.

McBride writes:

For more than a month, Democratic spinners had been in overdrive attempting to shamelessly tie Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green to Abramoff, the disgraced Washington, D.C., lobbyist. I wrote about that last week. All the Democrats had against Green was a liberal blogger’s claims that Green’s strategist, Mark Graul, had once requested sporting tickets from an Abramoff associate, which Graul denied. Nobody - other than Democratic partisans - had alleged any legal wrongdoing by Graul. And the media did not have any source documents.

Actually there were some documents. There are numerous emails detailing Mark Graul requesting tickets from Jack Abramoff's office. You can find them here. Minor detail I guess.

Then there is this:

When the political dust settled at the end of the week, Gov. Jim Doyle stood alone as the only candidate in the Wisconsin governor’s race known to have taken money from an Abramoff associate.

Really? And Rep. Tom Delay would be what to Jack Abramoff? No, she's right. Associate is not the right word for Rep. Delay. Very good friend that gives out cash fits much better. Rep. Mark Green must agree since he is not using the $30,000 from Rep. Tom Delay in his campaign for governor. The money Governor Doyle returned was from a lobbyist not even indicted, unlike Rep. Tom Delay.

And my personal favorite from McBride:

Finally, national Democrats embarrassed themselves by being so incredibly mean-spirited and unfair in their questioning of Supreme Court Nominee Sam Alito that they actually made his wife cry on national television.

When did Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina become a Democrat? I must have missed the press release. Senator Graham's questioning made Alito's wife cry. Or maybe McBride missed the Associated Press story about this. Here is how they described it:

After sitting behind Samuel Alito for two days of intense questioning at his Supreme Court confirmation hearing, she left the room during questioning of her husband by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Yes, Samuel Alito got intense questions during his nomination. That is what a confirmation hearing is for and both sides do it. It is an extremely powerful job and both sides should ask tough questions when a president of either party makes a nomination.

Game, set, match McBride says often in her post. Too bad the Abramoff game is just beginning.