Mitch McConnell's office is responsible for the attacks on the 12 year old?

Senator Mitch McConnell:



I am so sorry! I mean:



Think Progress:

Mounting evidence suggests that the right-wing smear campaign may have been orchestrated by a staffer in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) office.

First, ABC News reported earlier this week that a staffer in Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) office received an email that was not intended for him. The email from a “Senate Republican leadership aide” showed the minority leader’s office was intently tracking the smear campaign well before it had gained widespread attention:

“This is a perverse distraction from the issue at hand,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, D-Nev. “Instead of debating the merits of providing health care to children, some in GOP leadership and their right-wing friends would rather attack a 12-year-old boy and his sister who were in a horrific car accident.”

Manley cited an e-mail sent to reporters by a Senate Republican leadership aide, summing up recent blog traffic about the boy’s family. A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., declined to comment on Manley’s charge that GOP aides were complicit in spreading disparaging information about Frosts.

Today, the New York Times adds more to the story, reporting that Sen. McConnell’s office was preparing to issue a press release to attack the Frost family, but pulled back once the progressive blogosphere revealed the malicious campaign...

Update: Yes.

Update 10/16: Wild backpedaling by the McConnell staffer. Watch out for the blowback.

Christy Hardin Smith of Firedoglake:

So, let’s see. We have a senior aide to the Senate Minority Leader fronting out information about a 12 year old and his family that he failed to independently verify in order to smear the family in a political ends justifies the means effort to spike the legislation on SCHIP? Nice operation you have there, Mitch. Classy.

What I’m hearing through the rumor grapevine: There is some substantial anger among conservative bloggers at being left to hold this festering turd of a strategy for McConnell’s office — so much so that I heard yesterday that a couple of the bigger bloggers are considering actively working against McConnell’s re-election. This could get interesting.

Update: Think Progress has the YouTube of McConnell lying about his office's involvement.