The Scozzafava campaign has retracted spokesman Matt Burns' earlier accusation that WEEKLY STANDARD reporter John McCormack "screamed questions (in-your-face-style)" at NY-23 Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava. The raucous behavior the campaign claimed prompted them to call the police on McCormack Monday didn't happen, according to the reporter's audio recording, reported on by the Associated Press:
In the audio recording of the reporter's questioning played for The Associated Press by McCormack, the reporter didn't raise his voice, but repeated his unanswered questions several times, including one about abortion.
"I never screamed, I never yelled, I never shouted," he said. "My voice was only loud enough so she could hear my questions."
In a statement released Tuesday to the blog Politico, Scozzafava's campaign said the reporter "repeatedly screamed questions (in-your-face-style)," but later issued a statement deleting the accusation.
Today, the campaign leaked an e-mail exchange between Burns and McCormack to the liberal blog Talking Points Memo. Left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas and the National Review find themselves in a rare moment of complete agreement that the e-mails do nothing to make McCormack look bad (or the Scozzafava campaign look good, for that matter).
The Washington Times editorializes: "Dede's police state"
