Jeremy Fugleberg

Spin is a beautiful, frustrating thing. Done right, political campaigns can convince you that their candidate is a man of the people while still calmly letting you know the evil enemy candidate hates everyone and probably beats kittens.

Both the Thune and Daschle campaigns have held true to that idea. Sometimes they even flood me, the humble reporter, with so many facts and figures I want to give up and print fake photos of happy kittens.But un-spun fate, in the form of a “mixup,” intervened last week. I was in contact with the Daschle campaign regarding a story seen elsewhere in these pages. Below is a straight copy of our exchanged e-mails. The staffer’s name has been omitted to protect the embarrassed.

From: Jeremy Fugleberg To: (Daschle staffer) Subject: RE: Need Daschle response to story by late Monday.

From what I’ve looked up, that was the final passage vote on the FY2003 budget resolution. Thune voted yes, and it passed. How is that a vote against Pell grants?

Jeremy

From: (Daschle staffer)To: Jeremy Fugleberg Subject: FW: Need Daschle response to story by late Monday

douche bag has questions

From: Jeremy Fugleberg To: (Daschle staffer)

excuse me?

From: (Daschle staffer)To: Jeremy Fugleberg

I sincerely apologize for the mixup – I was typing a joke email response to a personal friend and accidentally typed it in this window by mistake. I assure you that this was not intended as a response to your question and I sincerely do apologize for the mixup and the error. I respect your work as a journalist and I would never consider addressing you, or anyone in that fashion.

Again, my sincere apologies for the mixup. I’ll give you a call to apologize by phone now and do hope you can forgive what I assure you was an honest computer mistake. All the best,(Daschle staffer)

From: Jeremy Fugleberg To: (Daschle staffer)

Sorry, I’m not by my phone, so I can’t take your call. I’m not angry, mad, or taking it personally in any way. To be perfectly honest, I laughed my eyeballs out. Thanks for your kind words and your abject apology, though, however misdirected they both were.

Look, if you really mixed me up with a personal friend, I’m honored. If you just forwarded it to the wrong person, namely me, it’s nice to have a campaign person tell me what you really think for once.

Either way, we’re just two fools doing the best we can to make it in the world. And I don’t think anyone would fault us for that. In humbling hilarity,Jeremy

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