Too Clever By Half

Tom Umberg is a local politician in Orange County, one of its increasing passel of Dems.

It seems that Tom, who supposedly was in the Reserves doing hard duty at Gitmo while running for the Assembly, was really in D.C. for much of the time, and was getting a bit on the side while posing as the soul of probity. (Where have we heard that one before?)

So Tom gets wind that the story of the affair might come out, and calls a friendly reporter at the Whale, aka Los Angeles Times, which runs with the story.

The Times's rival, the Orange County Register got scooped, but they'd been working on the Gitmo story and weren't going to go with the affair thing at all. But of course, after the Times story came out, it was all fair game.

Oops.

An account here by Scott Moxley, who works for the snotty "alternative" OC Weekly and is nevertheless a fine reporter who covers stuff the big boys won't, including the sins of pols on the left as well as the right. And here's the account in the Register by Frank Mickadeit, my favorite columnist, who takes too many days off.

HT: The fine OC Blog.