TOMORROW'S NEWS TODAY: THE TRASHING OF THE SANDY HOOK FAMILIES?

Just saw this on Twitter:

i see drudge is getting ready for the next phase: attack the newtown families. this will work out well.

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) April 12, 2013

And, yes, this is showing up at Drudge right now:





But Drudge shouldn't get all the blame -- he's linking a Politico story, which spoon-fed this meme to him. And Politico got it straight from the GOP:

... the Newtown families, political novices just a few months ago, are proving to be savvy, effective advocates as they promote the gun legislation that has finally begun to move through the Senate. The families are well-educated, and many are well-off. They have been polished and sharp on TV. They're mostly non-political, but quite accomplished in their own fields.... They also have their own lobbyists -- several of them, in fact.

... A group of experienced operators is guiding these families -- to a degree that has irritated some pro-gun Republicans. An uber-strategist for the families is Ricki Seidman, a familiar face at the top levels of Democratic politics ever since she ran the Clinton-Gore campaign's famous 1992 war room. Seidman, a senior principal with TSD Communications, was Vice President Joe Biden's communications director during the 2008 general election, and helped the White House win confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotmayor.

[Matt] Bennett's Third Way connected the families with a lobbying firm, Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, that set up more than 25 Hill meetings this week alone. And Lara Bergthold, a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns now with Griffin, Schein in Los Angeles, is helping to manage the media onslaught....

I don't really think there's going to be a direct mainstream GOP assault on these families -- that would be a bridge too far. I think there'll be isolated (but high-profile) nasty comments by the likes of Ann Coulter, along the lines of her 2006 attack on widows who were calling for a 9/11 investigation. The class card will be played (note that Politico says, "The families are well-educated, and many are well-off").

But Coulter (or whoever takes on the role in this case) will be the bad cop; the good cops will be the Republicans who piously say, more in sorrow than in anger, that these poor families are being manipulated and told what to say by Democrat Washington lobbyists, and what's being done to them by these slicksters is really such a shame. This will be a lite version of what Senator James Inhofe said a couple of days ago:

"See, I think it's so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn't," Inhofe said.

When it was suggested that the families of Newtown victims actually believe the gun debate pertains to them, Inhofe said, "Well, that's because they've been told that by the president."

Inhofe was widely criticized for saying that, but these are Republicans we're talking about -- their usual response when they're accused of saying something outrageous is to send several other people out to say the same thing, until we no longer think what they're saying is beyond the pale. So expect more of this. No one will say that the families are wrong to think this concerns them, but the idea that they're being told what to do and think, by evil Democratic operatives who don't have their best interests at heart, will be heard again.