Are the Republicans about to devour another of their own?

Here's a weirdness developing in and around SC politics:


Anaconda put up a story a few days ago claiming somebody tried to shake down SCGOP chair Katon Dawson for 200,000 simoleons (sorry, but this sort of story just begs who a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? angle) with information of a salacious nature about a prominent, unnamed, state politician. Of the GOP persuasion, BTW. 


Said story claims some SLED agents visited themselves upon the blackmailer with prejudice if not the extreme sort.


Today they put up a FAQ story claiming they know who the politico is, and what the naughty alleged bits are, and they aren't afraid of being sued but on the advice of their lawyers aren't letting the good bits out. 


Given the general cynicism that animates Anaconda, we figured this was all a prelude to a pitch to subscribe to his new $120-a-year morning news aggregator blast to get the low-down.


Now the angle of the story has shifted. Cue Mike Rogers, a Washington, DC blogger who runs BlogActive. 


Rogers has made a career of sorts outing secretly gay politicians and their staffers who oppose gay rights in public- or enable those who do- while enjoying the down low off duty. Picking up, in other words, where Mike Signorile left off.


So Rogers has a post up today linking to the first of Anaconda's stories, but adding this twist:

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Quite an interesting story out of South Carolina. It involves alleged police brutality, extortion, secret gay sex and at least one anti-gay Republican elected official.

Fitsnews.com has the story. I have decided to link to this story for two reasons. First, the writer has been clear to report only on what he has confirmed with law enforcement sources, not political folks. Second, it does not mention the politician's name.

The interesting part is this: while Anaconda's story- the one Rogers linked to- alleges the police brutality, extortion and a Republican official, it doesn't say anything about secret gay sex and an "anti-gay Republican elected official." 

Well, yes, you could say SC elected Republican officails are, perforce, anti-gay. But let's put that aside for just now.

What's Rogers doing crediting Anaconda with the whole story while embellishing it with saucy details that weren't in Anaconda's story, but that are BlogActive's stock in trade?

Unless there's more "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" going on that we thought, there's no six degrees of anything between Will Folkes and Mike Rogers. That suggests Rogers is piggybacking anaconda's story to tip his hand that there's stuff in Rogers' files bearing on the tale. Maybe Rogers is muscling Anaconda out of the story, given that Anaconda's still got some game in the GOP and may be feeling squeamish about getting totally out front, while Rogers just enjoys outing GOP hypocrites in any state.

Second possibility: there's a wild card politico who's been off everyone's radar.

Third possibility: it's all complete bullshit.

Waldo  suspects Door No. 1, and predicts a shoe that's been long predicted to drop making its appearance. Or Door No. 2.

Or Door No. 3.

How many SC politicians have got the pull to get SLED to send out a thug team? And are there pictures?