It’s been more than a decade since the Douglas vs. Leahy Senate race back in ’92, but every now and then a hint of the lingering, visceral dislike these two politicians have for each other bubbles up. Case in point this week, when Governor Douglas (as he often does) let his snide streak shine unfettered. Usually the press gives him a pass on his needlessly childish verbal jabs at political opponents because it doesn’t fit in with the “nice guy” narrative they’ve perpetuated on his behalf, but this time when his own staff tried to backpedal, they had to take notice.
From the wires:
The contretemps began Wednesday when Douglas pointedly told reporters at a business and industry show in South Burlington that it was Leahy who was co-author of a bill being setting up the framework that permitted wiretaps of such new technology as cellular telephones.
“Obviously, one of our U.S. senators was the sponsor of the legislation that facilitated some of this information gathering and you may want get his thoughts on it,” Douglas said earlier.
Asked by WDEV-AM if he were referring to Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and an expert on civil liberties, Douglas said: “He and U.S. Rep. Edwards were the sponsors in 1994 of legislation that required telecommunications companies to maintain and when appropriate transmit information to the United States government.”
Douglas historically has poor impulse control when he’s in the mood for neener-neener-neener-ing. But again, he never gets called on it by the media. Still, this is one of those times where his impulsiveness wasn’t necessarily in sync with his best interests.
His staff could see this, which is why Jason Gibbs rushed to rewrite history:
Douglas press secretary Jason Gibbs said the governor did understand the law and was not trying to pick a fight.
“The governor has great respect for the work that Sen. Leahy has done to protect Americans’ civil liberties, as well as the work he has done in so many other areas on behalf of the people,” Gibbs said
The Governor’s staff knows that the very last thing Douglas should want to broach is any topic that is even in the neighborhood of the NSA wiretapping scandal. They spend a lot of time attempting to innoculate him from any association with the unpopular Bush, and this is the worst topic imaginable on which to pick a fight with Leahy — one of the President’s highest profile critics on the matter, as well as being an immensely popular figure in Vermont. Leahy’s staff, on the other hand, is more than willing to gleefully pounce on the blunder and stuff it right back in Douglas’ face. After Gibbs’ “clarification,” Leahy’s office continued to push the Douglas-Bush connection:
“The clarification is welcome, and it would also be welcome to know whether the governor agrees the Bush-Cheney administration needs to be accountable by following instead of ignoring safeguards like the Leahy laws,” Pagano said. “That is an issue of vital importance to every American, not just for debate in Congress.”
Douglas will get away with it this time, but this incident may be indicative that the days of the free rides from the press on his impulsive snarkiness may be coming to an end — especially if his jabs come to close to Leahy.
What people forget — again because it’s contrary to the “nice guy” traditional media narrative — is that Douglas virtually invented modern negative campaigning in Vermont during his ’92 battle with Leahy (remember when Douglas accused Leahy of “screaming like a stuck pig” over Douglas’ attempt to make an issue of a congressional pay raise?), and the Leahy team has never forgotten that. They wanted badly for Racine to take him down a few pegs, and got over a lot of their concerns about Progressives in order to back Clavelle in his battle with the Governor.
These two guys really don’t like each other.
