Susan Collins

Netroots Attack Maine Newspaper Editor’s Connection to Republican Senator
By Noel Sheppard | September 2, 2007 | 11:33 AM EDT

A blog posting at Daily Kos on August 24 has fired up the Netroots to point accusatory fingers at a Maine newspaper editor whose wife works for Republican Senator Susan Collins.

After all the smoke clears, liberal bloggers ignored some key facts concerning this matter:

  • The editor under fire has worked at the newspaper in question since 1971
  • His wife - who is about to retire in September - has worked for the Senator in question for ten years
  • Her involvement with the Senator was disclosed by two newspapers, including the one her husband works for, in 1998
  • The cousin of Collins's Democrat opponent for reelection in 2008 is the paper in question's political editor.

Of course, none of these facts were included in the Daily Kos post that got this firestorm started:

Kos Falsely Smears GOP Senator With Leftist Troll's Words
By Matthew Sheffield | August 15, 2007 | 3:29 PM EDT

Whether it’s comparisons between the United States and the Soviet Union or George Bush and Saddam Hussein, the far left has always specialized in false moral equivalence.

In the latest example of this, Daily Kos proprietor Markos Moulitsas has been trying to shift the spotlight that’s now being shined on the numerous vulgar and hateful remarks for which his site is famous over to conservative sites, implying that the right is just as full of hate as his followers.

Trouble is, that’s just not the case. As NewsBusters pointed out earlier, left-wing blogs and their commenters are much more likely to use profanity than conservative blogs.

Brushing aside those pesky facts, Moulitsas launched a false attack on Maine senator Susan Collins today implying that “Arthur Frain,” a commenter on Maine Web Report, a site run by her online communications director was speaking for Republicans when he/she wrote the following: