Larimer County GOP huffs and puffs

Okay, so they scrub their site of any existence of Marines at their party building dinner. They replace it with photos of county deputies at their party building dinner. This is damage control?

The Coloradoan headlines this this morning:

A picture of a Marine dressed in uniform at Larimer County's Republican Lincoln Day Dinner has touched off a firestorm from national political writers and Web bloggers who say the party is using the military as public relations props.

The Fort Collins Coloradoan ran the photograph on Saturday of U.S. Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave introducing Marine Sgt. Brandon Forsyth, dressed in uniform, at the organization's Lincoln Day Dinner on Friday night.

A Department of Defense directive, however, prohibits active military personnel from participating in partisan political meetings while in uniform.

This is how Musgrave's people are trying to spin this:

The Larimer County Republican organization said that because it merely honored the soldiers instead of requiring their participation, they did not violate the code.

Calling critics "low," the party chair is appalled. The water must be hot. Musgrave's resident henchman intones:

"The best info the congresswoman received is there is no violation in honoring Iraqi veterans, and that's what happened," said Guy Short, Musgrave's chief of staff. "It's unfortunate people are trying to make political hay out of an attempt to honor veterans of the Iraq war."

That sounds like an "Oops!" to me.

The law, Mr. Short. The law.