Republican front group gets media, conservative blogs to bite

BlogsNow lists the "most linked to in 7,682,537 weblogs." At number 21 and climbing as of 1:00 PM (Central) is a story (broken link) that was apparently in the Arizona Republic for some time today before being pulled.

Steve at No More Mr. Nice Blog apparently actually saw the article, which he references in a post at 8:17 this morning. As far as Google News knows, the Arizona Republic is the only red-faced (sorry, couldn't help it) major media outlet to have run the story.

BradBlog broke the news about false-front "American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR)" in March after it was the only "voting rights" organization invited to testify before Congress' House Administrative Committe, chaired by Ohio Republican Congressman Bob Ney. ACVR had registered their web site only four days before, and the only names listed in the domain registration or testifying in the hearing were top Bush Campaign and RNC officials.

Jim Dyke of Dyke Associates was listed in the domain registration for ACVR and was the 2004 Communications Director for the Republican National Committee. Dyke lied to Brad of BradBlog in an interview, claiming that the address in the registration was that of "the company that designed the website." The address turned out to be that of a mailbox at a UPS store. Dyke is listed as both the administrative and technical contact for the domain. In an interesting twist, the registration record was blocked from public view for BradBlog's post of March 24, but appeared in this SamSpade.org search today. A search at Network Solutions yeilds only the blocked information.

The person who testified for ACVR was St. Louis attorney, Mark F. (Thor) Hearne, II, an attorney with Lathrop and Gage. According to BradBlog, "Hearne is a former Reagan Administration official, is the National Election Counsel to Bush-Cheney ’04 Inc. and was Missouri counsel to Bush-Cheney ‘00 Inc. As well, he was General Counsel to Republican Missouri Governor Blunt." The address on ACVR's web site is the same as Lathrop and Gage's Washington D.C. office.

Update: BradBlog is already on the story, which was picked up by a number of uncritical right-wing propaganda blogs, and at least one TV News Station. There's a listing of all things ACVR at BradBlog here.

Comments

[Steve M.]

Here's the cached version from Google.