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The Fred supporters are calling Mitt a liar, with no evidence.

Mitt’s camp denounced the site, I’ve seen the quotes. Both he and his paid advisor have SAID they had nothing to do with it. The guy who DID the site says they had nothing to do with it.

I didn’t fault the Thompson camp for the first day of attacks. They were reasonable attacks against an attack site.

I only started attacking them when they continued attacking Romney the 2nd day after he did everything he could do about it, after he said he had nothing to do with the site, and the site was gone.

Now it’s not about pointing out “bad behavior” against Thompson, it’s about impugning the character of Mitt, about a PERSONAL ATTACK on his integrity and honesty.

Fred’s campaign manager called Mitt Romney a liar. Frankly, he probably should be dismissed from the campaign, because he had no evidence for this claim.

And I think in general that if your campaign is going to call a candidate a liar, you aught to have your CANDIDATE stand up and do it, not hide behind surrogates.

But that’s just me, and I’m not CALLING for anybody to resign from either camp (I was ready to push for Tompkins to resign when I believed the initial Washington Post story — stupid me, believing the post, but some FredHeads can’t get over that).

But Donehue can’t “resign” or be fired because he’s not with the campaign. Donehue didn’t do anything criminal or unethical (we have our own “attack-republican” site right here for the republicans WE don’t like), and there’s no way Tompkins should dissolve a BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP over something like this.

The fact is, the perception remained after the 1st day. Nothing much Mitt can do about it.

But it is dishonest to continue to blog or be quoted as having evidence Mitt was actually involved, or to call him a liar over it.

That kind of rhetoric makes people who like Mitt mad, and frankly makes other conservatives who want to talk about issues mad. It may be “good politics”, but many of us are sick of politics, it’s how we end up with politicians who hire prostitutes, who think it’s better to plead guilty to keep their jobs, who take bribes and kickbacks, and who generally are morally challenged.

Fred Thompson was the candidate to rise above this (although Mitt wasn’t bad at that rising above stuff either). What started three days ago as a good thing for Fred now is making him look like just another politician.

Meanwhile, while Fred is making a 3-day story about a web site that existed only for a moment, the DNC is running an official web site attacking Mitt Romney. It’s still there. Mitt isn’t whining about it every day, he made the comment and moved on.

And none of the people attacking Romney for the 3rd day for a site he had nothing to do with and which is gone are running such continuous attacks on the Democrats for running a web site attacking a republican.

One reason for criticizing behavior instead of attacking the candidate personally is that if you have your facts wrong, you don't wind up in a position where you have called somebody some horrible thing without reason.

For instance, if the facts bear out that Mitt Romney genuinely had nothing to do with the Phony Fred web-site, I will be able to apologize for my error and stand by my statements that Mitt Romney is a good man and I will be happy to vote for him for President, when and if the time comes.

So, at this point it is a factual question, which should be explored dispassionately.

So, the case, as we have it is that:

Wesley Donehue created the website phoneyfred.org

Wesley Donehue is not an employee of the Romney campaign, but is an employee of several firms which have been hired by the Romney campaign

One employer of Wesley Donehue is Tompkins, Thompson, Sullivan, which is run by Warren Tompkins, who is Romney's senior adviser in South Carolina, and Terry Sullivan, who is on Romney's payroll as the South Carolina state director.

Wesley Donehue is also employed by Under the Power Lines and Mark Direct, which are companies founded by and associated with Warren Tompkins, who is Romney's senior adviser in South Carolina. The Phony Fred web-site was hosted on a Under the Power Lines server.

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So, what do you make of these facts?

The connection between Romney and Warren Tompkins appears to be strong. It would be hard for Romney to distance himself from Tompkins. It would appear to be fair to hold Romney accountable, on some level, for the actions of Tompkins.

Similarly, the connection between Romney and Tompkins/Thompson/Sullivan, Under the Power Lines, and Mark Direct also appears to be strong, since they all have Warren Tompkins in common. It would appear to be fair to hold Warren Tompkins accountable, on some level, for the actionis of Tompkins/Thompson/Sullivan, Under the Power Lines, and Mark Direct. So, Romney would appear to have some responsibility for the actions of these companies, because his relationship to Warren Tompkins.

So, the question becomes whether Wesley Donehue was operating on his own or under the direction of his employers (which is to say, Warren Tompkins), or if he was operating independently.

What do you think? Was Donehue working on his own, or under the direction of his employers?

Because, to my mind, if Donehue was working at the direction of his employers, the charge that there is a arms length relationship to Romney sticks.