Diana Irey Must Be Doing Something Right

Hat-tip to the LA guy:

The Left has launched a hit on Diana Irey who is challenging Jack Murtha in Pennsylvania's Twelfth District.

The designated assassin is the reliably sleazy Joe Conason, columnist for the New York Observer, and the vehicle of choice is Salon, a favored organ of the hysterical left.

Conason's hit piece [here] is a classic case of guilt by association. Diana's husband and his brother were part of a consortium of small contractors who received a contract to do work for the Iraqi mlitary. The man who brokered the contract was Dale Stoffel who at one time had been associated with Ahmed Chalibi. The deal went sour and Stoffel complained to Washington that Iraqi officials with which he dealt were stealing money. A few months later Stoffel was killed in a drive-by shooting near Baghdad.

Of course this has nothing to do with either Diana or her husband, but Conason strives mightily to involve them in what he calls a "bloody mess." Stoffel was characterized as "a shadowy arms dealer" with whom the Irey brothers had "joined up." Chalabi was an "alleged conman" with "neoconservative allies" who had a "checkered history" of passing "deceptive information" to US intelligence sources. He also invokes the spectre of "powerful Washington lobbyists."

Not content with that, he also assails the Irey campaign for having hired John Brabender, a Pittsburgh GOP political consultant. Among Brabender's other clients are Rick Santorum and Ohio Congressman Bob Ney and Conason uses this tenuous connection to suggest that scandals alleged against these figures also taint the Irey campaign.

This is just plain despicable, but it has become standard practice for smear specialist Conason and his pals on the creepy left. And it should be seen as evidence that the moonbats are beginning to take Diana's campaign seriously. They would not have unleashed a heavyweight dog of war like Conason against her unless she were perceived as a threat.

She must be doing something right.