I just had a funny feeling right now, and I thought I'd toss out this notion before I head to bed. I searched for a diary on this and didn't see anything. If someone's covered this, I'll delete.
I assume that Rove is looking hard for any Democrat with a sex scandal he can spin into a "both parties" narrative to try to limit the damage. And I gotta think that if he doesn't find anything he can use, he will at least consider making it up. Mr. Attack Your Opponent's Strength just got a new line of atack. In the event he tries to pull something along those lines, we have to be ready. My thoughts on that are in the extended.
There are four components I believe will have to be included in a counter-offensive to this kind of dirty trick.
1) The candidate must come out throwing haymakers. Not only would he have to angrily deny the accusation, he would have to call it a dirty trick. He will have to talk about Rove's history with dirty tricks. He will repeat the phrase "this is a guy who bugged his own office and blamed it on his opponent" over and over (as will the rest of us). He will ensure that the day after the scandal breaks, the headlines will read "Rep. __ Calls Sex Story 'a Dirty Trick that Stinks Like Rove.'" Family on TV as the victims of Rove's mendacity would be a huge plus. There has to be an extremely stark contrast between Foley and this person.
2) The reporter will be attacked mercilessly. His methods will be aggresively questioned. Any blind quotes will be ridiculed, not repeated. Every Democratic voice possible will call for his head. His past will be scoured and any ex-girlfriend who was displeased with his performance in bed will get a camera in her face, a youtube clip and it will be on every blog in minutes. Any previous questions with his reporting will be chanted over an over. And any hint of a GOP political orientation would obviously be front and center.
3) The outlet that runs the story, especially if it's Fox News, the Wash. Times or the like, will be decimated. Any and all instances of bias will be rehashed. The media matters file will be easily accessible and frequently referenced by surrogates. Any sponsors of the outlet will be harassed to pull their ads. The outlet's ombudsman will become a household name. We will start saying "reinstate the fairness doctrine" a lot.
4) The blogs have to point out that this is an attack on our democracy. We will have to link this up with general GOP proto-fascism policy and hatred for democratic processes. That's our main responsibility other than forcing the action on these other points. I appoint Digby to write an amazing post which perfectly expresses these ideas for me so that I don't have to, as is so often Digby's wont.
We will have to react immediately to line all these people up. We can just write a bunch diaries about how much we hate Rove. It will be the blog's five million alarm fire. I know a lot of this sounds ugly and like a perfect recipe to disgust independents and suppress turnout. But I just don't see an alternative under these facts. If the Dems don't fight, it will be swift boats all over again. And I highly doubt that the instinctive reaction of Dems in Washington will be to fight back. But that's where we come in. I'm sure others have more interesting thoughts to share. I am going to bed, but will be up early to check comments. And ideas I like will be added to this list as updates.