Yesterday, Bill Sali’s spinmiester Wayne Hoffman tried to put out the forest fire that erupted around Bill Sali’s comments about getting oil from trees. I’ll say this too; Sali should really rethink his choice of spokesman, Hoffman has been screwing up left and right over the last couple of weeks. Not exactly the sign of a well oiled congressional office.
The short back story: Last week Byron Yankey posted a quip about a meeting he had with Rep. Bill Sali in D.C. I picked it up, then from there Ridenbaugh Press and HBO both picked it up and ran with it. Ridenbaugh and DFO from Huckleberries Online both asked for a statement from the Sali camp either denying or confirming the quote.
Hoffman obliged… Well, sort of…
Hoffman @ 1:19
Congressman Sali is quoted incorrectly.
Hoffman @ 1:34
I wasn’t in the meeting. But I have heard Bill talk about using wood
sources for cellulosic ethanol. He has discussed and promoted using
Idaho forest products as part of that effort.
Hoffman @ 1:48
ThomG, I understand that your opinion of Bill is so low that you really
think that he would say that a tree contains 40 barrels of oil. There’s
really little I could say to convince you that he did not say that. I
know the man. I’ve heard him speak on this issue. So … how about a
little benefit of the doubt here? After all, basically, this is DFO
quoting Randy quoting a blogger that no one even knew until today.
Note the dismissal of the "blogger".
Hoffman goes from saying, with conviction, that Sali wasn’t quoted correctly, to admitting he wasn’t even in the room to a dismissal of the comment — all in about 30 minutes time.
I’ll also note that last night Ridenbaugh Press voiced a similar skepticism about Hoffman’s denial, but changed it sometime during the evening. Also of note; from the HBO thread Sara Anderson of F-Words said that she heard Sali say something similar back in 2006 when Sali was first running for Congress.
And after Sali has claimed that 40% of trees are made up of crude oil, well, I know who I believe.
Byron Yankey is not “a blogger.” He’s a candidate for the Legislature in District 13.
Yeah, I’ve mentioned that before.
In addition to being a candidate, Byron is a blogger, he blogs.