..the watchdogs are right about this: the news media, prosecutors and the general public should demand more information about what happened.
The parallels drawn with Watergate are a good place to start:
1. The return of the “second-rate burglary.” The New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal is being dismissed as small-time, state-level misconduct, but it occurred at a critical moment in a tough election.
In November 2002, Republicans were intent on winning a Senate majority so they would control the White House and both houses of Congress. They saw the Sununu-Shaheen race as pivotal. On Election Day morning, the phone lines were jammed at the Democratic offices and at a get-out-the-vote operation run by a firefighters’ union. The police were called, and the lines were eventually freed up. The election wasn’t as close as expected. Mr. Sununu won, and Republicans retook the Senate.
2. The return of the high-priced lawyer. Aficionados of the Watergate connection like to point out that one of the first clues that the Watergate burglars were not ordinary small-time crooks was the presence of a slick lawyer in an expensive suit at their first court appearance. In the New Hampshire case, Mr. Tobin was represented by Williams & Connolly, a pre-eminent white-collar criminal law firm. The legal bills, which published estimates have put at more than $2.5 million, were paid by the Republican National Committee. Democrats are asking why the committee footed the bill, if Mr. Tobin was a rogue actor who implicated the national party in a loathsome and embarrassing crime.
3. The return of “follow the money.” (As if it ever left.) New Hampshire Democrats pored over the filings of the New Hampshire Republican Party and found three contributions for $5,000 each, all shortly before the election. One was from Americans for a Republican Majority, Tom DeLay’s political action committee. The other two were from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, tribes that were clients of Jack Abramoff. Those checks add up almost exactly to the cost of the phone jamming.
Thank you, Adam Cohen! Dear blogreaders, please link to this NYT Opinion piece and email a copy to friends.
And a big thanks from me to Dave Winer who emailed me this story at 2:36 a.m., and is now giving me kudos for pursuing Phone Jammer Gate. But I’ll bet Adam Cohen first heard about this story on Scripting.com…