A Democratic operative named Marc Farinella managed the late Missouri governor Mel Carnahan's successful bid to unseat then-senator John Ashcroft in last November's election. Now Farinella has made opposition research he collected in that campaign available to interest groups attempting to block Ashcroft's nomination to be George W. Bush's attorney general. Farinella, with 15 to 20 fat file boxes, has taken up residence in the Washington offices of People for the American Way (PFAW), whom he is helping shop dirt on Ashcroft.
Allies of Ashcroft complain that any such "oppo" material properly belongs to the Carnahan campaign, not to Farinella, and that it is inappropriate and prejudicial for Sen. Jean Carnahan -- who will sit in judgment on the Ashcroft nomination -- to have authorized her late husband's political documents to be used this way. Mrs. Carnahan responds that Farinella is acting on his own. Farinella, for his part, contends that his files contain only materials already in "the public domain" -- and that "if someone would like access to them, they can call me and I would be happy to provide it as long as the request is reasonable."
To test this last proposition, last Thursday THE SCRAPBOOK sent reporter Jennifer Kabbany to PFAW, where she very politely asked for a peek at Farinella's stuff. Farinella asked her what she was up to. Kabbany replied that she'd seen news accounts in which he'd promised to make his files fully available to the media. Farinella frowned, and then said: "Very quickly, then. Five minutes."
Four minutes later, after Kabbany had fingered through a sheaf of photo-copied news clippings about the marijuana-possession arrests of Ashcroft's nephew, Farinella returned to the room, clasped his hands, set his jaw, and shut her down.
Also Thursday, White House hatchet man Sidney Blumenthal sent an e-mail message about John Ashcroft to his standard list of journalist buddies (see "Sid's List" in last week's SCRAPBOOK).
Sid's message referred addressees to those Farinella-file highlights that PFAW has posted on a special website, opposeashcroft.com. We're guessing that anyone who arrives at PFAW's offices and says "Blumenthal sent me" will be received rather differently than our reporter was.