GOP hypocrites buying editorial ink

This story broke yesterday, but it's worth looking at now because of all the updates which have been added. Progressive North Carolina blog "Facing South" dug up an interesting story on some pro-Bush newspaper "editorials" from various parts of the country which all turned out to be identical.

What do this newspaper editorial, this one, this one, and this one all have in common?

All of them are unsigned editorials, which makes it look like they're original opinion pieces for each paper. (The Colorado Springs Gazette even says it's "our view.")

And they all happen to say exactly the same thing, beginning with this paragraph:

One of the smartest things President Bush did to reduce recovery costs in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita was to suspend Davis-Bacon Act rules in the hardest hit states. But Congress is frantically trying to overrule the president, which would add billions of dollars to the already staggering recovery costs.

Amazing that newspapers from California, Colorado, and North Carolina could be channeling, simultaneously and in complete harmony, the Bush administration line for cutting wages for workers rebuilding the Gulf Coast.

As this story picked up traction in the left blogosphere, number updates were added which you should check out. My favorite, however, was when the original author of the "editorials" was unmasked.

...the author of the editorial is here! His name is Sean Paige, editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette and a man with a rich history in right-wing politics. On his resume: "Staff Assistant for Communications, White House," personal aide to John Sununu (Chief of Staff to Bush I), and "Press Secretary: Keyes for Senate" (ouch). More on his history here.

And here's the best part: just this month, none other than Sean Paige penned an editorial slamming MoveOn.org members for sending "astroturf" letters to newspapers. Here's a choice passage:

I began noticing patterns in the e-mails — the same rote phrases or analogies that betray an orchestrated letter writing campaign, rather than a spontaneous outpouring of thoughts and feelings.

Oh,hypocrisyy... thy name be Republican punditry. It's been a bad couple of weeks for the GOP and things just seem to keep going downhill.