Amazingly, it seems the local press doesn't appreciate being played for complete fools by Sean Smith and Marion Steinfels, as evidenced by this reaction in today's Connecticut Post (hat tip Sue at MLN):

Thumbs down to U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., and his campaign. The senator's campaign staff recently released several ads critizing Lieberman's Democratic primary opponent, anti-war businessman Ned Lamont, for owning shares of Halliburton, a company the government has awarded billions of dollars in Iraq war contracts to. Lieberman told the Connecticut Post editorial board last week that, "It's important that apeople know where you get your income from." Lieberman should have taken his own advice. According to a news report in the Post Friday, it turns out the senator also owns shares in Halliburton. While his staff says that Lieberman was unaware he owned any Halliburton stock, it seems questionable that his campaign never raised the Halliburton issue without first checking Lieberman's own stock holdings. Hopefully the senator's campaign will exercise better discretion in the future.

Of course, that's not stopping Steinfels from continuing to jerk around local reporters, as she did to Ted Mann of the New London Day (among others) yesterday:

Steinfels also accused Lamont of being “misleading” and “lying to the public” about the nature of his ownership of stock in Halliburton, the multinational conglomerate once led by Vice President Dick Cheney, a company that has received billions in federal contracts for its services in Iraq.

This was a day after the campaign acknowledged that Lieberman owned Halliburton stock. Yet they're still pushing their hypocritical line, because to focus on the real issues would be the death of their campaign.

But treating the local press like garbage is par for the course for their campaign. Campaign manager Sean Smith once threatened a local TV reporter with the words “If you distort the truth and report that we are running a negative campaign and Ned is not, I will not forget it.”

They've slapped the local press in the face more times than can be counted. And they continue to do so. No wonder the press is slapping back.