Steve Oelrich changes his story again, explanation still lacking

Say what?

Third time apparently isn't the charm for Steve Oelrich. His third attempt to explain his military eligibility has left us with just as many unanswered questions as the first two.

As I wrote last week, the Oelrich campaign issued a press release claiming that an injury he received in the line of duty as a police officer was the reason he was ineligible for the draft, but publicly available documents show that the eligibility-ending injury actually happened years before his law enforcement career began. 

The story got even stranger when the campaign reacted by deleting the press release and replacing it with a new one (back-dated to the date of the original release) as if nothing had ever happened. 

Then, last weekend, the Florida Times-Union ran a story about the controversy, and Oelrich's response raises even more questions:

Oelrich campaign reacts to my post...sort of...

I think I smell smoke...

Last week, the Steve Oelrich for Congress campaign sent out a press release expressing outrage at a mailer sent by one of his primary opponents, Cliff Stearns, in which he claimed that the reason he was ineligible for military service was because of injuries he received during his law enforcement career.

However, as I noted in a post last week, publicly available documents show that the injury that made Oelrich ineligible for military service happened in a hunting accident when he was a teenager, before he was a police officer.

I'm hoping Steve Oelrich can explain this

Are Steve Oelrich's pants on fire?

An alert reader forwarded me some intriguing information about a dispute between two of the candidates in the Republican Congressional primary in Florida's Third District, and I'm posting it here, hoping that State Senator Steve Oelrich has a good explanation for what seems, at first glance, to be a blatant and cynical distortion of the truth, if not a flat out lie.

Here's the background:

What's behind the shady false attacks on Cliff Stearns?

Cliff Stearns never struck me as controversial. Quiet and unassuming, he's managed to forge a solidly conservative path during his time in Congress, but largely avoided the spotlight until this past year, when he earned accolades for his work leading the Solyndra investigation. So I was, quite frankly, shocked that this election year brought not only a slew of primary challengers against Stearns, but also at the level of vitriol of their attacks on him.

Career politician? Great! (Why Ted Yoho is very, very wrong about Cliff Stearns)

I get a lot of email from political candidates, some of it welcome, some unsolicited, and some just a giant dose of #headdesk (for the non-Twitter users, that's something that is so outrageously stupid that it makes you want to bang your head against the desk).

You can file the email I got yesterday from the Ted Yoho congressional campaign under the "headdesk" category.

High five to Congressmen Stearns and Issa!

On the rare chance that Members of Congress can be trained the same way you train a puppy, let's try a little positive reinforcement. After the jump, I share stories of two Congressmen who I think deserve a high five.

Morning Coffee Reading for September 12, 2011

Here's your morning coffee reading for today:

• L'affaire de Greer continues to burn, and it hasn't escaped the notice of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In a recent post, the DSCC lands some devastating blows on George LeMieux, including link after link after link to news articles showing the years of connections between LeMieux, former Governor (and former Republican) Charlie Crist, and former RPOF Chairman Jim Greer:

DSCC | Adam Hasner Says You Broke The Law. What Say You, George LeMieux? --& (Crickets)

• The New York special election to fill Anthony Weiner's Congressional seat is shaping up to be more of a challenge than the Democrats expected:

Michelle Malkin | Doug Powers | Race to Replace Anthony Weiner Update: Poll Finds Republican Leading by 6 Points

RedState | PPP (D) Poll: Turner (R)/Weprin (D) 47/41 in NY-09