Flashback: "If You're Confused, That's My Intent"

Today marks the two year anniversary of Ed Martin's replacement as chief of staff for former Gov. Matt Blunt. 

Hours after his ceremonial pardon of a Thanksgiving turkey, Blunt was repeatedly asked to explain Martin's departure. Blunt refused to offer direct answers, and then finally said:

"If you're confused then that's my intent."

Martin's departure came in the wake of intense criticism about how he handled the firing of Scott Eckersley, the former staff attorney who said he was fired after advising Blunt’s office not to delete emails. After dismissing Eckersley, Martin "orchestrated a taxpayer-funded character assassination unlike anything ever seen before in Missouri government."

The legal battle of the email records and Eckersley's wrongful termination suit would eventually cost taxpayers more than $2 million.

Since leaving the governor's office, Martin has engaged in a host of political pursuits that continued to waste taxpayer money, though still keeping his name in the press. In that time, we've see Martin:

• Serving as President of the Missouri Roundtable for Life, which has filed an obscene number of ballot initiative petitions that will never actually make it on the ballot.
• Engaging in a frivolous lawsuit with the Roundtable, which Martin himself described as a "nuisance" suit.  The judge in the case said Martin's "arguments of conspiracy and constitutional violations fail as a matter of law, are without merit, and rise to the level of being frivolous."
• Founding Term Limits for Missouri, another ballot initiative group, which he recently admitted wouldn't actually be gathering signatures
• Describing SOS Robin Carnahan as "The Devil" at a public forum.
• Collaborating with Karl Rove
• Blogging at the personal, political website he set up on state time
• Serving as President of the American Issues Project, which ran TV ads last year playing up connections between Barack Obama and William Ayers
• Gleefully spreading manifestly false information in the federal health care debate
• Hanging out with the lunatic fringe and serving as a featured speaker for the Eagle Forum's "How To Take Back America" Conference

And now, he's running for Congress as an allegedly reasonable person. 

Go away, Ed. Go away.

Image credit: MoLawyersMedia.com