It begins… The Law of unintended consequences to bring down Tom Carper
I always thought that it would be Father Time, but it will be the fact that he admitted to hitting his wife.
Drudge Report links to Carper story. I’m not linking because I don’t want to give Drudge hits. The story he links to is here. Freebeacon.com
MediaBiasFactCheck.com says this about The Washington Free Beacon, a website I have never heard of before.
The Washington Free Beacon is an American politically conservative political journalism website that publishes news and opinion commentary. It has a very strong right wing bias and often publishes misleading headlines that do not match the content of stories.
Senator Carper, I hope you are fucking happy you jumped on the Al Franken should quit bandwagon.
Celia Cohen.
The main gist of the article appears to be that admission to Cohen was contrary to a prior denial.
Now the Daily Caller has picked up the story.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/12/14/top-senate-dem-admitted-to-giving-his-wife-a-black-eye-during-a-1998-interview/
Just out of curiosity, if this was part of an interview with Cohen way, way back when why is this just coming out now? Was this not in the book she wrote? How did details of this interview even get out now?
It is from her book.
Kevin, this story is regularly mentioned on this blog.
Maybe reporters read about it on Delaware Liberal and then did the research.
Or maybe locals who want to defeat Carper in 2018 sent it out to reporters.
This story is in Cohen’s book which is advertised on the state website (read the article.)
It’s sad that these guys can side with the robber baron, the polluter, the corporate crook, the campaign contributor, the billionaire class, et al and work against the interests of average people and civil society every day and they get elected over and over until only a sexual issue or personal conduct issue runs them out.
I agree. If you look at Carper’s Senate resume it is horrifying. He has no accomplishments other than undermining Democratic priorities by siding with the GOP and handing out freebies to corporations and banks.
That he may have punched his ex-wife is crappy, it may mean that he is s bad person. That’s a matter of conjecture. What we know is that he was elected to represent THE PEOPLE of Delaware. He simply hasn’t done that. If he is primaried it should be on his lack of resume, not on his lack of marital virtue.
That’s because “sexual issues (and) personal conduct” has a brighter line than the other stuff. After all Americans are puritans and we know sin when we see it (except for the Xtians of course). The rest of the stuff is simply is based on competing theories of economics or matters of degree. For example, “campaign contributor” would include you, would it not? Your money talks, not as loud as someone with more money, but still.
What you are really saying is that someone with more money is able to exert a greater influence on society, laws, government, and life in general. And of course, you are correct. ‘Twas always thus, and always thus will be. There will never be a society where some are not more influential than others, by whatever means they are able to exert their influence. Every society has a hierarchy, depending on what it values. In an agrarian society, the farmer is king and exerts a greater influence by virtue of their profession. Ditto a military society or a technological society or a religious society. In our society money talks.
The challenge therefore, is to overcome that outsized influence by sheer weight of numbers banded together with shared goals. However, in order to establish those shared goals, one is forced to compromise because purity is the realm of those with means. The rest of us have to find a way to work together, unless you aspire to the role of a lone voice crying in the wilderness.
The Free Beacon is far-right, but there’s nothing off about this story, which takes pains to slag the News Journal — deservedly so — for TWICE making the story not about Carper hitting his wife but about people trying to bring that to the public’s attention.
This is what Free Beacon types think is “liberal” bias, when of course it’s actually a person-in-power bias. The first time the claims surfaced, the paper couldn’t verify them and decided it “wasn’t news.” The second time, as I noted, they tried to bury the revelation under the “dirty trick” Rzewnicki used to disseminate the information, pretending that an obscure third-party think tank had acted independently.
Let’s see if the current management of the News Journal tries to atone for leaving its thumb on the scale the first two times this came up.
Let’s furthermore see what Kirsten Gillibrand, new frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, does about this. If she doesn’t call for his removal, she’s a hypocrite.
PS: Bonus points to Carper for describing Diane’s injury as “puffiness and discoloration.” Sounds so much nicer than “black eye,” doesn’t it? Ever get a black eye? It takes more than a “slap” to cause one.
Given the law of unintended consequences, wouldn’t it be prudent to think about who Carper’s replacement would be? That failure could have been what gave Delaware Coons instead of Castle, n’est-ce pas? Or does everyone think that anyone is better than Carper?
The most likely consequence, if any, is that Carper won’t run for re-election next year.
If you’re trying to hint that a Republican could win the seat, well, that’s up to the Democrats, isn’t it?
I’ll take my chances that Carper’s very weak next year and either doesn’t run (like Al said) or gets beat in the primary rather than have Governor Cipher make an appointment.
For that, RE, you’ve got to have a primary challenger. Got any names? Doesn’t look like Eugene Young has the intestinal fortitude at this point.
If Carney had to appoint a temporary replacement like Minner did, look for someone like Jeff Bullock to get the nod as the placeholder.
“If you’re trying to hint that a Republican could win the seat, well, that’s up to the Democrats, isn’t it?”
That’s how we got Trump.
I’ve been expecting this to come up. The News Journal has always protected and defended Carper because he’s a servant of the corporate/banking world (just like the News Journal itself?) Is it enough to take him down? I dunno.
To me, the issue isn’t whether it’s time to take him down (it is). Or, more specifically, the issue isn’t whether to take him down for this.
The issue is whether the same people who were so quick to take Franken down (including, I might add, Carper), will move to demand that Carper leave. When I think that the question answers itself, the only word that comes to mind is ‘hypocrites’.
Or, maybe Carper will do the ‘right thing’, just like Franken, and vacate the premises.
Is it relevant that Franken was actually doing important work, on net neutrality and other issues? Whereas Carper is basically just an opportunist.
Apparently not.
Is it relevant that one admitted to hitting his wife while the other allegedly groped someone in a gag photo?
Apparently not.
Interesting story out today that 4 Dem Senators regret pushing Al Franken out now, including Pat Leahy of Vermont. They got caught up in the furor and rush to judgment.
Fucking purity tests. I love ’em.