Sometimes a story is so interesting it deserves going up on my posts at FlashReport whether it has to do with California or legal developments or not, so, here it is, John Fund on former YR Chairman and (the tie-in) early Reagan for President field director Roger Stone……whom a few of us California Reaganites have had some experience with.
Title: Stoned: Republicans who hire Roger Stone, the not-so-merry prankster of American politics, should have their political sanity checked. The latest Stone client to learn that lesson is New York State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who had to fire Mr. Stone as his $20,000-a-month political consultant after he allegedly made a bizarre and threatening call to Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s 83-year-old father, Bernard. “You will be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Committee on Investigations on your shady campaign loans… And there is not a [expletive] thing your phony, psycho, piece of [expletive] son can do about it, Bernie” is how a portion of the call went.
Mr. Bruno was getting advice from Mr. Stone on how to exploit Governor Spitzer’s own alleged dirty tricks efforts to discredit the New York Senate leader. But Mr. Spitzer’s controversial actions have been temporarily eclipsed by the Stone comments, which Mr. Bruno calls “despicable.” For his part, Mr. Stone insists that he’s the real victim here of Mr. “Spitzer’s ultimate dirty trick.” The 55-year-old consultant insists that the recorded message was left using a phone at a New York apartment he rarely occupies, in a building owned by a major Spitzer fundraiser who could easily have gained access to make the call. Voice experts who have listened to the call say it’s unclear if the voice on the tape is Mr. Stone’s.
No matter what the truth here is, Mr. Stone has such a checkered path that Mr. Bruno should have known that politically damaging controversy was almost guaranteed to follow in the wake of his hiring of the former Nixon operative. Mr. Stone, a former top Washington lobbyist, started out as a protégé of disgraced Nixon White House aide Chuck Colson and was later fired by Bob Dole after being labeled a “dirty trickster” in the media. In 1986, the New Republic put him on its cover as “Washington’s state-of-the-art sleazeball.”
Mr. Stone went on to work for such political zanies as Tom Golisano, an independent candidate for New York governor, and casino mogul Donald J. Trump, who was plotting an independent run for president in 2000. Neither man is known as a reliable defender of conservative principles, nor is Mr. Stone.
In 1996, he again had to resign from a position as a consultant to Mr. Dole after it was reported that he and his wife had advertised for group sex on the Internet. Back then, Mr. Stone similarly claimed he was the victim of a dirty trick, even though he had to concede the bills for the Internet postings had been paid for with his personal credit card.
Here’s hoping that Republicans, independents, vegetarians, you name it, finally learn that whatever the murky truth of Mr. Stone’s activities, he’s simply too hot to handle.
— John Fund