Abramoff said that he got everything they wanted from Burns’ committee, and everyone seemed to take him at his word and didn’t even bother trying to uncover the other side.

I never said that.

Geez, when you call something a rumor, you are saying it’s:

1: talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source

2: a statement or report current without known authority for its truth

(See, I have a dictionary, too.)

And when you link to said rumor, the reader can judge whether it’s credible. That’s an “opinion.” Blogs are full of “opinions.” Sometimes they are wrong.

I thought it had merit. Apparently it didn’t. Oops. But I don’t think it exonerates Burns. I don’t think his burden has been “lifted” in any discernable way, other than folks who apparetly do want to tie their reputations with the former Senator. (Go for it!)

I’ll gladly wear my reputation as someone who thought Burns was unethical and unfit for office and who thinks the better man won the 2006 election.

I’ve got one at the office and one at home, too. And the OED on line.

That the DoJ just, for whatever reason known only to the DoJ (because they’re seemingly not telling), stopped investigating does not mean that Mr. Burns has been ‘cleared’, ‘acquitted’ or even ‘exonerated’. It means they’ve stopped investigating.

And if someone on the sinestra side of blogging had tried to split this hair the way the dextra side appears to be, I submit that the dextra side would be all over that like white on rice.

Or Burns on soft-money donations, whichever analogy you prefer.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

“Well, here’s an interesting rumor that’s worth passing on to you: an indictment is waiting in the US Justice Department for our very own Conrad Burns.”

I don’t see any reference to opinion in that quote, Jay.

It’s not like I wasn’t intending on giving you full credit for saying that Burns had been indicted, just a few days before the election. That was the point of the post, giving you the full credit.

It was certainly clear I didn’t claim the words as my own, either. And there’s nothing sneaky or underhanded about my posting the entire post here, and crediting the author, or disingenuous, either. It’s yours, forever, and anyone else’s who archived it for future use.

And it’s clear I didn’t claim the post for my own, nope. It’s clearly intended to credit “touchstone” for the whole sordid post.

But for anyone else to archive it for future reference, you can find it at this link:

http://4and20blackbirds.wordpress.com/category/conrad-burns/page/3/

Copying the post without including the link, and then accusing me of failing to reference it is disingenuous, goof.

However, given the subsequent revelations of the politicization of the DoJ,I’m still not sure the rumor was false; we’ll probably never know. Is the investigation over — for now? Definitely. Is Burns innocent of the accusations I leveled against him? I don’t believe it for a second.

Integrity and ethics are values I believe in and demand of my representatives. And I firmly believe Burns did not share those values.

I regret that the post — written more than a year ago — has clouded that issue.