OK, So About This Crazy Twitter Thing

Eric Fehrnstrom has now emailed a confession to the Globe, admitting to being the man behind the @CrazyKhazei Twitter account. Fehrnstrom does not apologize in that statement, nor does he answer whether Scott Brown was aware of it, or whether he has other fun and fanciful Twitter accounts still barking insults about opposing candidates in the Massachusetts Senate race and/or any other race he's involved with, including his main meal ticket Mitt Romney.

Fehrnstrom wrote to the Globe: “Sometimes we take our politics too seriously and this was my way of lightening things up. As they say in politics, if you can’t stand the tweet, get out of the kitchen.” 

Here's the thing: I'm not sure he's wrong.

Political campaign operatives have long been donning disguises to make it appear that their rhetoric is coming from unbiased, or at least non-campaign-paid sources. They have been known to submit letters to the editor under phony names. They call into talk radio as "Joe in the car." They attend other candidate's events incognito and call out comments and questions. And in recent campaign cycles, they post comments under phony names on blogs, news sites, and other Web pages all the time.

So, yes, it certainly seems sleazy and deceitful on its face to create an anonymous Twitter account through which to make comments so nasty that you wouldn't want the campaign to be associated with them. But, I don't know that it's any different than what we know they do all the time in other media and formats.

Of course, when they get caught, they should get punished by having extra attention heaped on those things they were doing that they didn't want to be associated with. And that absolutely should happen to Fehrnstrom, and through him to Brown.

Which, I believe, is exactly the kind of association with nasty political activity I just the other day described as "Doing Scotto No Favors."