Let's be clear

Just so everyone understands what, exactly, the whole story is about the "shove it" incident

The dustup occurred after Heinz Kerry gave a speech to the Pennsylvania delegation denouncing 'some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics.' McNickle approached her and asked what she meant by 'un-American activities,' in effect accusing her of McCarthyism. Heinz-Kerry denied using the phrase 'un-American activities' and stormed off. Yet when Pa. Gov Ed Rendell pointed out to her that McNickle was a reporter from the Tribune-Review, Heinz Kerry returned to him with a rebuke. 'You're from the Tribune Review?' she asked McNickle with a face tightened with rage. 'That's understandable. You said something I didn't say. Now shove it.' ...McNickle's provocation of Heinz Kerry represents the latest manifestation of a poisonous dirty tricks campaign Scaife has financed to undermine Heinz Kerry, a fellow western Pennsylvania philanthropist whom he considers his rival. And now that Heinz Kerry has been thrust into the national spotlight by her husband's presidential candidacy, Scaife's smears are likely to intensify. The Tribune-Review routinely sniped at Teresa Heinz during her marriage to Pennsylvania's Republican former Senator John Heinz. When the senator died in 1991, and the Massachusetts Junior Senator John Kerry stole Teresa's heart, the paper's attacks grew increasingly slanderous. On December 28, 1997, the paper featured an anonymously penned cover story falsely insinuating that a woman named Sheila Lawrence had had affairs with both Bill Clinton and Kerry. "Far from giving all to Bill, there was still something left over for Sen. John Kerry," who had "a very private tete-a-tete" with "sexy Sheila," the columnist alleged. In another column, the Tribune-Review mocked John Kerry as "Mr. Teresa Heinz." Perhaps the most spurious of the Tribune-Review's attacks came in December, 2003, when it ran a piece accusing Heinz-Kerry of secretly "funneling cash" from her Heinz Endowment to the Tides Foundation, a group that "supports extreme left wing groups... anti-war protests... unlimited abortion rights, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy, as well as and [sic] environmental extremism." The piece was based on research conducted by the right wing think tank Capital Research Center, yet failed to mention that Scaife granted the center $240,000 in 2002 or that he was connected to it in any way. The article also omitted the fact that the Heinz Foundation's grants were all strictly earmarked for mainstream western Pennsylvania environmental charities, an inexcusable omission that could have been avoided if the paper had bothered to call either the Heinz Foundation or the Tides Foundation to confirm its wild claims. Despite the article's shoddy research, its accusations became a favorite tune on the right's Mighty Wurlitzer. FrontPageMagizine plugged it in a piece called, "Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady of the Radical Left;" The New York Post followed with the headline, "Teresa Heinz's Cash Connection;" Rush Limbaugh promoted the claims; the Weekly Standard picked the story up. By the time Fox's Brit Hume reported the accusations, they had been brushed clean of Scaife's fingerprints. ...McNickle has also displayed a disregard for journalistic ethics throughout his career. His chronic carelessness was most apparent in his July 2000, column, "Thus (Mis)Speaketh Al," a collection of imbecilic quotes by then-presidential candidate Al Gore. Though the article was laugh-out-loud funny, there was one small problem: the statements McNickle attributed to Gore were actually quotes by former Vice President Dan Quayle. Yet even after his mistake was exposed, McNickle refused to give an inch. "I'll stand by where we got the information from," McNickle told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Let's be perfectly clear. You know how the right's strategy against Clark was to just repeat that he's crazy? Their strategy against Teresa is to just repeat that she's out-of-control, and uncontrollable. And our SCLM will lap it up like dogs.