Garbriel Gomez, a private equity guy and former Navy SEAL, won yesterday's Republican Senate primary in Massachusetts and will face Congressman Ed Markey in the general election on June 25. Gomez, who was recruited by the national GOP, has a bit of controversy in his recent past, which he's trying to play down, with the help of National Journal:
Gomez served as a spokesman for the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund, which ran a 22-minute video bashing President Obama for politicizing the killing of Osama bin Laden. Gomez told the Globe he doesn’t have any regrets about speaking for the group. "Like anything else, I can't control who all those guys are," he said. "I'm not part of that group. I was just asked to go on a radio and TV show and talk about two points."First of all, the video didn't just accuse the president of politicizing the bin Laden raid -- as I told you in February, it accused the president of deliberately endangering national security -- and putting Americans' lives at risk -- with leaks. The full video, entitled Dishonorable Disclosures, is here, but you can get a sense of it from this preview:
Gomez is right -- he "can't control who all those guys are." But he can control the people with whom he chooses to associate. What is he telling us? That, sure, these people have a few nutty ideas, but apart from that they're really good guys? And that it's OK to promote a video effectively accusing the president of treason (during the president's reelection campaign) if you don't directly accuse him of treason yourself?
And is Gomez keeping his distance from these people now? No, according to the National Journal story:
Now, the group is sending fundraising letters, seeking donations of up to $5,000 for Gomez's campaign.Gomez aided and abetted a shameless campaign of swiftboating. He's taking money from swiftboaters. If this race becomes close, Markey should make Gomez's involvement in this group a centerpiece of his campaign.
