Not Just a Concern Troll but a Stalker, Too!

by: Laura Clawson

Mon May 07, 2007 at 12:54:12 PM EDT

I have read the poll data too and I agree that this is very bad news for Hodes and that our chances here in NH are very dim. This probably means the national party and national money will look somewhere else to pickup the seats needed to win back Congress, but that is smart and I hope they find the right races.

I don't want them spending one dime on wasted effort. We only need 15 House seats and 6 Senate seats - not all of them. I am going to look at the competitive race list to figure out where to send another mydd.com / netroots donation and maybe help out in other ways. Maybe CT or NY for me - they are at least close by.

Well, apparently being the Wikipedia definition of concern troll was not enough political notoriety for our Tad.  Nope, he had to go and break into his ex-girlfriend's apartment and trash the place.

Howell alleges that Furtado slashed every piece of furniture in her home with a knife. He did the same thing to her lingerie, her complaint contends - and then proceeded to douse her underwear drawer with Tabasco sauce. Howell also says Furtado poured bleach over many of her clothes, threw eggs, olives, beer and yogurt in her washer and dryer, and threw some of their vacation photos from Paris in her toilet.

Classy!

Once again, Charlie Bass finds himself talking to the press about Furtado's misdeeds.  Why is that, exactly?  Didn't Furtado's employment with Bass end a while ago?  Not so much:

But Bass was awfully loyal to his former aide. He kept Furtado on the House payroll through October, even though he'd supposedly resigned a month before. And when Bass went on to chair the moderate GOP lobby the Republican Main Street Partnership this winter, he brought Furtado with him as a policy aide.

So Charlie's back where he was in September, saying he knew nothing about the atrocious behavior of the same guy, after having rehired him.

"Tad tendered his resignation this morning," Bass said May 2, adding that he had "no other comment on any of this stuff except to say I knew nothing about it until late in the afternoon" the day before, when Congressional Quarterly contacted him about the situation.

I know it's a courtesy extended to professionals and all, but at what point do you stop going "No, seriously, THIS time he TOTALLY resigned" and start going "This time, I fired his crazy ass"? (h/t Kagro X)

But there's a serious question there.  Back in September, in the aftermath of Furtado's resignation (the first one), I wrote:

Charlie Bass has offered an apology - in a written statement to the press, mind you, not to us - and I'm not sure what to make of it. Whether or not it's sincere, it's clearly more honorable to have followed this path than the NJ Senate path of denial. But this was happening in his office, by one of his top aides, over a period of months - of more than a year if you count his Our Congress post on Bass. Whether or not he knew anything about it, this, in my opinion, speaks to an atmosphere of ethical permissiveness in the Republican party today that pervades Bass's office no matter how much he talks about his independence. This didn't happen in a vacuum. It was done by a member of the party of the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal, the party of Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham. This certainly doesn't rise to the level of any of those, but it's part of a broad and disturbing pattern. Until Bass addresses that, and declares true independence from it - which he has not done - his apology is incomplete.

Now we're again supposed to buy that Bass just didn't know that Furtado was engaged in wrongdoing.  Only this time we know that the first time, after supposedly demanding Furtado's resignation, Bass kept him on the payroll.  And then got him a new job.

I'd say my question was answered.  Bass cares about his own public image enough to demand the resignation of someone who threatens to tarnish it.  But he does not care enough about ethical behavior enough to sever ties with someone who transgresses it. 

So I want to see Charlie Bass answer this question: Do you not feel you lied to the people of New Hampshire when you said Tad Furtado had resigned in September?  And a bonus question: What exactly do you think this episode says about your own judgment and character?

House Computers and Blogs

by: Laura Clawson

Mon Jan 08, 2007 at 18:29:10 PM EST

The computers in Hodes's office bore government-issue stickers that identified them as belonging to Charlie Bass, the six-term Republican Hodes defeated.

All hardware (and phone numbers) are handed down within congressional districts, though hard drives are erased, said Reid Cherlin, Hodes's press secretary. That means Hodes's staff now has the computer that former Bass staffer Tad Furtado used last year when he posed as a Democrat and posted anti-Hodes messages on the internet.

I find that funny, verging on hilarious. 

Also funny in that context is that when I visited the office on Friday, I asked if I could check my email.  Patrick Brown, formerly the campaign field director and now...something, I'm not sure of his job title, waved me over to a computer.  As I checked my email, he suddenly looked at me and said "Laura, you wouldn't..." and despite my immediate acknowledgement that I knew just what he was saying and would not do anything that could contribute to even the appearance of impropriety, he still delivered a little lecture the gist of which was "don't you dare even look at any blogs on that thing."