MSNBC's Scarborough Country host and former U.S. Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL) knows a red herring when he sees one. In an August 24 interview, Scarborough guided anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth spokesperson Merrie Spaeth through the tough subject of her connections to smear groups that supported George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. In 2000, Spaeth was spokesperson for a group that ran $2 million worth of ads attacking Senator John McCain's environmental record during the Republican primary.

Rather than asking her about an August 20 New York Times report about her role in attacking McCain's environmental record, Scarborough instead falsely claimed that the Times accused Spaeth of working for “that fringe veteran group that also smeared John McCain.” By responding to an accusation that hadn't been made, Spaeth accepted Scarborough's invitation to create the illusion that she was categorically denying what are, in fact, accurate allegations about her role in attacks on McCain's environmental record.

From the August 20 edition of The New York Times:

In 2000, Ms. Spaeth was spokeswoman for a group that ran $2 million worth of ads attacking Senator John McCain's environmental record and lauding Mr. [George W.] Bush's in crucial states during their fierce primary battle. The group, calling itself Republicans for Clean Air, was founded by a prominent Texas supporter of Mr. Bush, Sam Wyly.

Scarborough's misstatement of the New York Times report:

SCARBOROUGH: The New York Times says that you've been involved with the Swift Boat Vets. The New York Times also said that you were the spokesperson for that fringe veteran group that also smeared [Senator] John McCain. Is that true?

Spaeth responded by agreeing with Scarborough's mischaracterization of the New York Times report and used the opportunity to deny involvement with McCain smears that benefited Bush:

SPAETH: No, absolutely, positively not. I run a corporate firm. We've been in business for 17 years. I am -- I'm astounded that they would say things like that and even more astounded that journalists wouldn't take the time to go check it out.

[...]

SCARBOROUGH: Did you have no connection with the McCain ads in South Carolina in 2000?

SPAETH: None. None. Zero. What's lower than zero? Nothing.

SCARBOROUGH: You didn't act as a spokesperson for one day, for one minute, for one second?

SPAETH: No. No.

But as Salon.com's Joe Conason reported in a May 4 article, “In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed as 'Republicans for Clean Air' produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and Ohio.”

When asked by Scarborough if she is “the conduit through which information passes from George [W.] Bush's campaign and goes to the Swift Boat ad vets,” Spaeth denied any connection with the Bush campaign. However, in his May 4 article, Conason also noted:

Although not as well known as Karen Hughes, Spaeth is among the most experienced and best connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan administration she served as director of the White House Office of Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting “news” items that boosted President [Ronald] Reagan to TV stations around the country. While living in Washington she met and married Lezar [the late Tex Lezar, law partner of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth co-founder John E. O'Neill], a Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for governor. (Lezar lost; Bush won.)