Congressman Ben Quayle denies changing his stance on immigration policy, contrary to what Congressman David Schweikert and a few others have suggested.
The Schweikert campaign's response to that: you're going to trust Brock Landers?
Yes, Quayle's past contributions to TheDirty.com -- then known as DirtyScottsdale.com -- are back like it's 2010, when Quayle's posts to the website under pseudonym "Brock Landers" caused some controversy.
Schweikert's campaign cites a snippet of a Landers opus, which says "my moral compass is so broken I can barely find the parking lot."
The Schweikert folks say this is part of "Quayle's well-documented inability to tell the truth about his involvement with a website known as DirtyScottsdale.com."
The problem with that is -- as my predecessor James King set straight -- is that Quayle didn't quite lie about it.
A Politico reporter called Quayle at the fresh hour of 6 a.m. to ask if he was involved with founding The
Dirty, to which Quayle said no.
He then asked Quayle if he was involved with it in any way -- Quayle took "it" to mean the founding of the website -- to which Quayle again said no.
That led to the Politico headline of "Quayle Denies Link to Dirty
Scottsdale Web site."
A few hours after that, Quayle explained that he had written the satirical posts for the website, not founded it, which isn't nearly as controversial, considering Quayle/Landers' posts -- which can be found here -- really aren't that objectionable substance-wise.
Meanwhile there's the Quayle campaign's interpretation of events in the competing email blasts, in which "Dishonest Dave" apparently is at it again.
The Schweikert campaign had sassed Quayle yesterday, saying in part, "Quayle's 180 degree turn on this issue is good for Arizona."
Of course, Schweikert's folks weren't really thanking him -- maybe backhandedly for the campaign fodder -- but rather trying to peg him as a flip-flopper.
Quayle's campaign spokeswoman says the Congressman didn't flip-flop.
The Quayle campaign addresses the video -- which we've talked about here before -- in which Quayle addressed the possibility of allowing some people who were brought to the United States illegally to be able to stay here, without a path to citizenship.
It sounded a lot like the Obama administration's policy that would later be announced, although Quayle decried that as a "backdoor-amnesty program."
Here's the Quayle camp's explanation of the video:
As you see in that video, Congressman Quayle very plainly states (as he has for three years) why amnesty is out of the question and why no discussion of resolutions for people brought to the US illegally as children and now living here otherwise lawfully can be forged until border security is in place and real immigration enforcement established. He then also discusses some of the concepts that have been raised for resolution of some such cases, but states clearly that he hasn't yet seen any proposal not beset with loopholes and worthy of support.
You can watch the video below to decide if you think that explanation matches up: