What happened to Mike Matthews is going on all over America as election season nears a boil. The same day a Connecticut Republican dropped out of his race over Facebook comments, the GOP candidate for governor of Michigan was forced to apologize for a creepster comment he made during taping of a video 30 years ago. A liberal opposition research firm released it to Talking Points Memo:
In the 38-second video, a woman out of view of the camera can be heard telling Bill Schuette, then a Michigan congressman, to move closer to a lamp. “I will do anything you want,” Schuette replied. “Some things I may not let you run the camera on.”
Schuette’s campaign issued a statement Wednesday claiming the GOP nominee did not remember the circumstances surrounding the “interview outtake.” Schuette himself called it a misguided attempt at a joke. As in Matthews’ case, the video was already out there — it appeared on a conservative web site back in July.
Amanda Marcotte has a theory about how Republicans justify Trump’s corruption, and as a bonus it explains why they’re such a ready audience for conspiracy theories. Short version: They want to believe Democrats already do all those things.
Supreme Court reporter Dahlia Lithwick ponders how Chief Justice John Roberts, a fanatic about the court’s reputation, will confront the appearance of a partisan SCOTUS in the age of Kavanaugh. Also, too, polling has found that confirmation has not changed the public’s mind — a majority still believes he doesn’t belong there.
Isaac Edward-Dovere flew to Iowa with Sen. Cory Booker the night after the Kavanaugh vote and reports on the 2020 presidential hopeful’s appeal.
The New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins revisits the story about connections between computer servers in Trump Tower in New York and a Russian bank and finds the New York Times minimized the story at the time, and computer experts continue to work on finding out what was going on.