Griper Blade: John Sweeney; the Final GOP Scandal Before the Elections?

Has the GOP handed yet another seat to Democrats on the eve of the election? Kind of looks that way. New York's 20th is represented by Rep. John Sweeney and Sweeney has been confronted with the classic campaign question, "When did you stop beating your wife?"

In this hypothetical situation, a candidate is asked whether he's stopped beating his wife. There is no good answer to that question; no matter what you say, you'll wind up with headlines like, "Candidate Refuses to Answer Wife Beating Charge" or "Candidate Denies Beating Wife." There are a lot of scenarios where this question is handled well -- Sweeney's response isn't one of them.

Sweeney was confronted with a 911 call to police. His wife accused him of 'dragging' and 'knocking' her 'around the house.' When police showed, his wife didn't press charges, but Sweeney had scratches on his face -- clearly, there had been a physical confrontation.

At first, Sweeney's response was that the documented report wasn't true and was a forgery by his opponent Kristen Gillibrand's campaign. The police themselves would neither confirm nor deny the report, saying that it was a matter of privacy -- good on them. No charges, no public record.

But here's where Sweeney's handling of this whole thing went south -- he promised that he and his wife would sign waivers to allow the police to release information. What Sweeney seems to have been unprepared for was a helpful media; the Albany Times-Union, the New York Daily News, and the Associated Press all offered to help him by providing notarized waivers. Sweeney then did a 180 and angrily refused.

Oops! Not so innocent-seeming anymore...

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Tags: news politics elections republican New York scandal crime John Sweeney Kirsten Gillibrand