Stay with me here: The Boxer campaign has acknowledged that the letter we posted earlier on Boxer campaign letterhead soliciting teachers to recruit student volunteers is authentic… but they weren’t really soliciting teachers to recruit student volunteers… but they are still sorry. Prepare to have your intelligence insulted by Boxer campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski:

Because some local social studies teachers encourage students to volunteer, Boxer campaign volunteer coordinators notified a handful of schools near the campaign headquarters that the campaign was accepting volunteers. The letter did not ask teachers to solicit students to work on the campaign or to use school facilities, supplies or equipment for political purposes. The sole intent of the letter was to provide interested students with information about a volunteer opportunity. However, the letter, which was written by a volunteer and reviewed by a junior staffer, was inappropriate and we apologize. The author of the letter has been counseled and campaign coordinators will no longer conduct outreach to public schools.”

I acknowledge there’s an amount of wordplay, an amount of posturing done in a campaign, particularly when we get down to the wire in a tight race, but the hubris in this response is overwhelming, if not impressive. The aforementioned letter begins, “As you may know, Senator Boxer is facing her toughest race yet. With only 19 days left until election day, it’s now or never.” Later on it’s suggested that teachers can award extra credit to students who work on the Boxer campaign. Yet, according to the Boxer crew…

The letter did not ask teachers to solicit students to work on the campaign or to use school facilities, supplies or equipment for political purposes…

If this is true, then why are they apologizing? They’ve done nothing wrong after all!

But they have done something wrong: Those responsible for Boxer’s reelection bid asked teachers to pimp out their kids for her campaign, and got caught red handed. Now they have the audacity to play semantics games in the press and pass the blame down the chain to “a junior staffer.”

Honestly, how dumb does Barbara Boxer think we are?

Here’s the letter again:

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