Did Mickey Kaus just out the Weekly Standard’s pseudonymous Campaign Standard blogger Richelieu as GOP consultant Mike Murphy? Given Mickey’s usual tongue-in-cheek phrasing, this is as close to an accusation as he’ll get without (disclosable) proof1:
**–I think this argument was made by Weekly Standard’s Richelieu. Or maybe it was consultant Mike Murphy. I get them confused sometimes! … 7:09 P.M.
Richelieu wrote the Campaign Standard’s latest post at 12:14 p.m. on Friday; there’s no response yet from him nor any contributor to the blog. (Bill Kristol, Richard Starr and others write for it, but Matthew Continetti is listed as the editor and his caricature is featured at the top. Nice work.)
To be fair, I haven’t read enough Richelieu to recognize one of his arguments, though I’m aware he’s been hitting Huckabee lately. And I haven’t paid enough attention to Mike Murphy’s “Meet the Press” comments, other than those about Fred Thompson2.
But Kaus wouldn’t be the first to make the insinuation. On September 27 a Ramesh Ponnuru post at The Corner said, and I quote in its entirety:
The Standard has a new campaign blog. My guess is that “Richelieu” is Mike Murphy.
Why would Murphy want to conceal his involvement, if indeed he is Richelieu? Possibly because he was a top strategist for McCain in 2000, was more recently a consultant to Mitt Romney, and wants to avoid having to comment on them publicly. But Murphy has been on “Meet” twice this year in a recurring panel featuring Bob Shrum, James Carville and Mary Matalin. Maybe it’s different, appearing on a talk show and writing blog entries. It’s no different ethically, but a nom de plume would allow him to write more frankly. On the other hand, he wrote a column for The Hotline from 2003-04 called “Backseat Driving” under his own name. On the other other hand, none of his former clients were running for president then.
To reiterate before hitting “Publish,” I’m not saying Murphy is Richelieu. If he’s not, that could be pretty interesting, too. Keep an eye on the Campaign Standard.
P.S. Of possible relevance: Murphy was, briefly, a producer on CNBC’s briefly-appearing “Dennis Miller” talk show which, I might add, I always thought was underrated. Left-wing FAIR, kind of a forerunner to Media Matters, hit Murphy at the time for producing the show while serving as a consultant to Gov. Schwarzenegger. Also possibly relevant: Kaus sometimes appeared as a guest on the show’s “Varsity” roundtable.
1 Unless maybe it’s John Edwards.
2 Non-”Standard” standard disclosure.
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