"Did it hit a little too close to home?"

Jim Lee, who first wrote about Roy Blunt's controversial taxpayer-financed mail piece last week on his BusPlunge blog, follows up today in the News-Leader's 'Roses & Thorns' section:

A THORN: To Roy Blunt for abusing his congressional franking privileges by sending a public document labeled official business that was "prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense" to selected constituents. It was nothing more than a thinly disguised piece of campaign literature. You seemed pretty defensive in the piece, congressman, did it hit a little too close to home?

It's hard to argue with Lee's description of the mailer as "a thinly disguised piece of campaign literature."  Blunt has made responding the League of Conservation Voters' ad a central part of his campaign in recent weeks, and even said their "Stain" ad was written in such as way "to get around the campaign finance laws." 

Does anyone believe Blunt would have sent this mailer if he wasn't running for the US Senate, and if the ad's mention of Blunt's more than $1 million in oil and energy interest cash wasn't hitting "close to home"?