Who secretly recorded the McConnell campaign?

A "longtime local Democratic operative" accuses "leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC" of what is, apparently, a felony.

“They were in the hallway after the, I guess after the celebration and hoopla ended, apparently these people broke for lunch and had a strategy meeting, which is, in every campaign I've been affiliated with, makes perfect sense,” says [Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party]. “One of them held the elevator, the other one did the recording and they left. That was what they told to me from them directly.”

The meeting room door is next to the elevators on that floor. McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton has told multiple media outlets the door was shut and locked on Feb. 2. But the door has a vent at the bottom and a large gap underneath....

"At Howard University, Rand Paul Falsely Claims He Never Opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act."

Writes Adam Serwer in Mother Jones, quoting a 2010 interview in which Rand Paul said:

PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I'm all in favor of that.

INTERVIEWER: But?

PAUL: You had to ask me the "but." I don't like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that's most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.

Back in 2006, some of you may remember, I got into a very uncomfortable situation with some libertarians over precisely this issue. Rand Paul wasn't around, but I got a close-up view of some libertarians displaying an attitude about private race discrimination that literally made me cry:

What disturbed me was the assertion in the writings that the public accommodations provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act were pernicious. And when I said that at the conference, a lot of the participates immediately challenged me. Did I think the law was right?!! This is what I mean by the excessive belief in the libertarian principle at the abstract level. These folks -- including [Reason Magazine's Ron] Bailey, I think -- would have left restaurants and hotels to continue discriminating against black people as long as they pleased. Someone asserted that the free market would solve the problem better than government regulation. I said that the restaurant in the case about the constitutionality of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in fact made more money by seating only white customers and serving take-out to black people. One other person at the table agreed, but the point was pushed past. It didn't fit the abstraction. I thought the failure to deal with this point was very damaging to the credibility of what we were reading and talking about.

Much more at that second link. What we were reading and talking about — at a big, well-funded conference — was "a slim book touting a political philosophy that was used in its time very specifically to oppose civil rights and desegregation."

Too many people at the table wanted to talk -- at length and repetitiously -- about abstractions, such as the meaning of the word "virtue." I found this perverse and offensive.... Why should I respect this man [Frank] Meyer at all to want to engage with his book? He wrote screeds in the National Review urging the southern governors to take over the National Guard and fight off school desegregation!

I have no idea if Rand Paul has the cold inner core that I saw amongst the libertarians in 2006. I would like to like him. But this point about private discrimination and the free market... Paul needs to tell the truth!

Why was David Corn offered that secret audio of McConnell and his aides talking about how to attack Ashley Judd?

Corn, who won't reveal his source, says he doesn't know and didn't ask, but he guesses it was because he was the one who leaked the "47%" video that wrecked Romney.

Indeed, in the wake of the Romney revelation, Corn has received a mini-flood of would-be audio and video leaks about Washington figures. Some of these have looked promising, but none have become public — yet. Corn said he hasn’t been able to vet them to his satisfaction or work out terms for making them public. He has “passed” on several of the offers for a variety of reasons.

So then the question becomes: Why did Corn publish the McConnell material? He says he made sure it wasn't "faked, doctored or taken out of context," and he sought a response from McConnell, but that doesn't explain why he put effort into this material rather than all that other material in that "mini-flood" of material that now flows his way.

Corn cites "newsworthiness":

“I think voters and citizens have a tremendous right to know almost as much as possible of the elected officials who come before them and ask for their votes,” he said. “I think people can decide for themselves how outrageous [McConnell’s] behavior is, but it gives you a glimpse inside his campaign’s thinking.”

That quote doesn't explain anything at all about why this particular audio is newsworthy. It's a generic statement that would justify publishing the secret recordings of the planning sessions of every political campaign! 

There is absolutely zero particularity about why McConnell's campaign was the one Corn selected from the mini-flood of audio and video leaks that he hasn't vetted yet. One is forced to conclude that Corn wanted to get McConnell. That's a political standard, not the journalistic standard.

It's not "newsworthiness." It's partisanship.

IN THE COMMENTS: Some commenters react to this post by saying, more or less, duh, Mother Jones is partisan. They are missing the fact that the link goes to a front-page Washington Post story elevating Corn in the journalistic profession.

Secret recording of Mitch McConnell strategy session about how to go after Ashley Judd.

David Corn at Mother Jones has lots of audio clips and transcript, but he doesn't tell us who made the tape and gave it to him. Surveillance on a political campaign? If that's not bad, should we revise our opinion about the Watergate burglary?

Corn would like us to think he's got material that's quite nefarious, because "McConnell and his aides considered assaulting Judd for her past struggles with depression and for her religious views." But doesn't every campaign brainstorm about everything that could possibly be used? One campaign aide said:

She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s.

And there's a quote of Judd's about how bright and flashy things are in America, such that when she returns home from overseas things, like "pink fuzzy socks on a rack" can make her "absolutely flip[] out" and she "can never anticipate what is going to push [her] over the edge." We're supposed to be offended that McConnell's people even considered using material like that? Hey, she kind of used "pink fuzzy socks" against America. Surely, the pink fuzzy socks can be used against her. No! Not the fuzzy socks!!!!

How about using religion? Well, it depends on what kind of material you have!

She says Christianity gives a God like a man, presented and discussed exclusively with male imagery, which legitimizes and seals male power, the intention to dominate even if that intention is nowhere visible.

Is there something bad about a campaign thinking of using and how it would use material like that? Obviously, there's some overall theme that Judd is flaky and not in synch with mainstream Kentucky. 

CNN reports:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign is "working with the FBI" on how Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, obtained a recording of political aides meeting with McConnell and discussing opposition research on Ashley Judd, McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton told CNN Tuesday....

"Obviously a recording device of some kind was placed in Senator McConnell's campaign office without consent. By whom and how that was accomplished will presumably be the subject of a criminal investigation," Benton said in a statement.

Either this kind of bugging is acceptable or it's not. I'm surprised Corn went forward with it when the material isn't even shocking. It's actually quite bland... in comparison to what I assume is batted around within all the various campaigns as they decide how to attack opponents. Can we get transcripts of all that crap? I'd love to blog it.

Suddenly, I realize why Corn may believe this material is worth printing: These are attacks on a sweet and pretty lady. Corn's decision to publish is — ironically — evidence of sexism.

ADDED: There's an update at the first link that says the tape came from "a source who wishes to remain anonymous" and:

We published the article on the tape due to its obvious newsworthiness. We were not involved in the making of the tape, but it is our understanding that the tape was not the product of any kind of bugging operation. We cannot comment beyond that, except to say that under the circumstances, our publication of the article is both legal and protected by the First Amendment.

Here's my question to Mother Jones: Do you want to encourage the activity that produced the tape? Do you endorse this activity as applied to all the politicians you love? You are profiting from this activity. Whether you are protected from legal action or not, your actions imply that you believe what you are doing is ethical and good journalism. That applies across the board, whether the intruded-upon politicians are ones you loathe or ones you love. Step up and endorse that, explicitly and clearly. I challenge you!