October 9th, 2012
A couple weeks ago when Politico ran their big story about infighting in the Romney campaign after the GOP convention, the lede was centered around the creation of Romney’s acceptance speech and a lot of people publicly mused that speechwriter Matt Scully was behind the leak.
That suspicion seemed, at the time, a really big reach. It didn’t fit Scully’s persona or modus operandi. And Scully had no clear motive for planting the story. The most likely source seemed to clearly be someone quite close to Romney, a true believer who had a beef with Stuart Stevens.
Today, Politico has another story out which publicly credits Tagg Romney for leading a pre-debate rebellion against Stevens. Both pieces were written by the same co-authors. This has the appearance of being the denouement of the first piece, where credit is finally given to the parties leading the internal fight against Stevens so that Romney could be Romney. I wouldn’t bet $10,000 that Tagg was behind the first story, too. But in light of today’s piece it seems to me that any suspicion of Scully as the leaker should probably be put to bed.
I realize that outside of a very small world, no one much cares about this. But Scully is one of the true good guys in politics. And gossip linking him to that Politico leak is the kind of thing which inflicts real damage on someone’s career. Which he doesn’t deserve.
The case for suspecting Scully was always weak. Now it’s inoperable.
Update: I probably should be more specific. It would be honorable for Dave Weigel to revisit this item he wrote about Scully. (And the subsequent Twitterendo.)
Nedward October 9, 2012 at 1:51 pm
Why would Scully need to palm a fiver to the nearest journolist… He can email over his own rendition to the nearest anti-Republican culterati mag, and it’s probably going to be a vastly superior piece anyway. In that demimonde having actual talent provides your diplomatic immunity against the garden-variety pseudo-celebrities like Stevens, or Michael Gerson of course