wtf?... last night, Sen. Dick Durbin's spokesman said a column written for the Los Angeles Times by law professor Jonathan Turley, describing a conversation between Durbin and Judge John Roberts, was "false."
"Not accurate," said spokesman Joe Shoemaker.... "I don't know who was his source. Whoever the source was either got it wrong or Jonathan Turley got it wrong."
But, as it turns out, according to Turley, his two sources for the account of the conversation were: Sen. Durbin himself! -- as well as spokesman Shoemaker.
Turley claims Sen. Durbin told him the story -- in person -- on Sunday morning, in NBC's green room, in between the Sunday talk shows.
Is Turley lying? Is Durbin lying?
In his original column, Turley had written that sources told him that when Durbin asked what Roberts would do "if the law required a ruling that his church considers immoral," Roberts had "appeared nonplused," then paused, then said he'd "probably have to recuse himself."
In response to Shoemaker's claim that his column was inaccurate, Turley told the Washington Times (yes, the Moonie paper), that:
he met Mr. Durbin in NBC's makeup room Sunday between the senator's appearance on "Meet the Press" and Mr. Turley's appearance on another program. According to the professor, Mr. Durbin told him the story while Mr. Turley took notes, adding that he called Mr. Shoemaker and read back his account of the meeting "word for word."
"I specifically confirmed Senator Durbin's account with his press secretary," Mr. Turley said.
Turley also told the New York Times that "Mr. Durbin himself had described the conversation to him on Sunday morning, including the statement about recusal."
Here's the original Los Angeles Times column, "The faith of John Roberts."
Turley is a professor at George Washington University, and according to his GWU bio, in addition to a lengthy list of accomplishments as a lawyer and an academic, he is "a nationally recognized legal commentator; he ranked 38th in the top 100 most cited 'public intellectuals' in a recent study by Judge Richard Posner and was found to be the second most cited law professor in the country," with more than 400 articles published in national publications.
Mr. Turley, in my opinion, is not going to call a Senator a liar on a whim.
what the heck is going on here? anybody have any clues?
that Powerline blog (found via Google, all I know re: Powerline is through comments here) has an entry titled, "A planted story gone bad," which suggests that Durbin lied to Turley on purpose, and quotes Hugh Hewitt (again, for what it's worth) as follows: "Durbin is a double-talking hack who wanted to plant a story but didn't think Turley would quote him."
This scenario sounds pretty weak to me, at first glance -- if Sen. Durbin wants to get a story out with a wink and a hint and a nod, I'm sure he knows how to do it properly.
There hasn't been a lot of stories about this yet, maybe there'll be more tomorrow. I certainly expect the Los Angeles Times to put something in print re: the conflicting accounts -- there's nothing yet, that I can find. no "correction" or addendum to Turley's column, certainly.