For those not following this story: last week a campaign office of Russ Carnahan* (D, MO-03) was firebombed by an officially unknown assailant. A suspect was arrested and subsequently quickly released. This development, coupled with the odious nature of the attack itself, led to both widespread concern and widespread condemnation among the right-side of the blogosphere (including RedState)… but, curiously, not notably among the left-side.

Given that the attack appeared to be an act of domestic terrorism, the reaction of the latter seemed incongruous. It was later discovered that the person arrested and released was Chris Powers, a former campaign staffer of Russ Carnahan’s – one with apparently a longer history with the campaign than the ‘one week’ that Carnahan has claimed – who was also a diarist (under an assumed name**) for Talking Points Memo, which is an influential blog and website among Democratic and progressive political operatives and bloggers.

Today, Talking Points Memo finally released an article on the affair, in which it reported both that Powers denied any involvement in the original attack, as well as implicitly denying any relationship between TPM and Powers beyond the latter’s ability to post diaries at TPM:

As several blogs have reported, Powers wrote a reader blog at TPMCafe under the name Ripper McCord. (Any TPM reader can create a blog and comment on the site, and Powers is not affiliated with TPM.)

No explanation was offered as to why TPM declined to cover for almost a week the firebombing of a Democratic Congressman’s campaign office; a firebombing which featured at one point a TPM diarist as prime suspect.

No further arrests have been made in the case as of the time of this article.

Moe Lane

*Not to be confused with his sister Robin Carnahan, who is currently losing the Missouri Senate race to Roy Blunt.

**A common practice in the online community, and thus not necessarily a sign of nefarious intent.