Newly-named Napolitano Department of Homeland Security spokebot Sean Smith tried to create the illusion of an illegitimate victory by Democratic Senate challenger Ned Lamont in August 2006 when he invented spurious charges of website-hackery and sold them to Villager media gasbags like Chris Matthews.

People may not recall, but the "hacked website" claim on Primary Day in August 2006 was the first step in de-legitimizing Ned Lamont’s victory so that Joe Lieberman could run as a sore-loser when he lost his party’s nomination.

 Campaign manager Sean Smith claimed to Chris Matthews — in a wide-ranging telephone interview that became the basis for wild accusations and cablenews reporting the rest of the day — that the Lieberman campaign was completely crippled and unable to reach voters or communicate internally, because Ned Lamont was supported by "the type of people on the Internet." This went a long way towards making Lamont’s victory less legitimate in the eyes of the national media and shocked Villagers, thus enabling Joe Lieberman to mount his as-planned Connecticut-for-Lieberman sore-loser run for the seat he’d held for three terms.

Sean Smith’s lies were the beginning of the general election campaign to make sore-loser Lieberman look like he might have been robbed of a primary victory due to some Internet-type-people’s lawbreaking. Sean went on for more than ten minutes with Chris Matthews about reporting these crimes to federal authorities, the type of people who would commit these felonious acts, and how Ned Lamont could make it stop simply by going on television and appealing to his supporters to cut it out.

None of it was true, of course.

Lieberman campaign manager Sean Smith to Chris Matthews, 8/8/06: "We’ve exhausted all those internal possibilities, and we’ve checked all the boxes.  We’re confident this is not a problem internally from our campaign."

Chris Matthews, setting the scene for Villager shock and dismay should Lieberman lose, as he did: "If you guys lose a close one tonight, if it’s a squeaker — are you going to blame it on this?" 

Nobody Hacked Lieberman’s Site, 4/9/08: 

Just as most bloggers thought at the time, a federal investigation has concluded that Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s 2006 campaign staff "was to blame for the crash of its Web site the day before Connecticut’s heated Aug. 8 Democratic primary," theStamford Advocate reports. 

"The FBI office in New Haven found no evidence supporting the Lieberman campaign’s allegations that supporters of primary challenger Ned Lamont of Greenwich were to blame for the Web site crash." 

This same Sean Smith will now be the spokesman for Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security. Why is Sean Smith’s lack of integrity being rewarded with a high-level position in the Obama Administration?  Or if Sean Smith believed this made-up story about website hackery, does DHS really need a spokesbot so easily hoodwinked by technical silliness, especially in a department that deals with cyberterrorism?

And why would a federal department already sorely lacking in credibility want to start off 2009 on the wrong foot, truthiness-wise?