(From the diaries with minor editing -- kos)
In unbelievably bad taste, Jim Talent and the Missouri GOP has attacked a staffer of Claire McCaskill who died over the weekend in a plane crash.
Here's the brother at FiredupMissouri:
I am Melissa Berridge's brother James...getting an indoctrination tonight to the blogoshpere. Melissa (Missy to my mom, sisters and I) is the staffer who was attacked today by MOGOP lies just three days after passing away.
Alas, at times the dead DO speak...and I WILL do so for my sister. I want anyone willing to hear me/read what I write to know that this attack came as Missy's family left a funeral home in Fairview Heights, IL after saying goodbye to her. By far the hardest day of my life (seeing what something like this does to your mother is nothing I would wish on anyone) this attack left me simply stunned...at a moment when my entire family was already hurting beyond words.
Missy was going to do great, wonderful things with her life. She already had. I mourn for what she won't do now with an additional 50 years or more of life almost as much as I mourn for losing her physical presence. I already miss her terribly. Yet, we are willing to forgive this action should the MOGOP and Senator Talent simply offer us a written apology.
Until I read that comment, I wouldn't have posted here. But it turns out that not only did the Talent campaign make the original attack, they continued after they knew the situation. Here's the details of the attack:
The MOGOP attacks Claire McCaskill for "failing to file her routine campaign finance report on time." But, it turns out that not only did they mail it on time, they have the receipt to prove that they did. And the person who was responsible for it, the person who's "incompetence" the MOGOP is attacking, died in a tragic plane crash last weekend. I'll let the AP take it from here
Marsh called on the Republican Party and incumbent Sen. Jim Talent - McCaskill's opponent - to issue "an immediate apology to Melissa's family and retract their insensitive release."
Sloca declined.
"It's unfortunate that Claire McCaskill has turned this into an issue about the unfortunate death of a staffer to hide from her incompetence," he said.
McCaskill later wrote to Talent directly, thanking him for a previous note of condolence about the death but calling the GOP's claims about Berridge's work "hurtful to her family."
"I would really appreciate it if you would ask your party to stop this and apologize," McCaskill wrote.
Talent's campaign spokesman, Rich Chrismer, said there would be no further response.
Wow. Jim Talent should show the simple decency to back off this attack and apologize to the family. Now that the family is speaking out and indicating how much this attack hurts, the Missouri GOP should come clean. Some things should be beyond politics.