Ed Martin Misrepresents Bill McClellan

On his facebook page, Ed Martin claimed that Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan was saying that Martin was "outside of Washington" in a recent episode of Donnybrook.

But that's not really accurate. If you go to 22:44 in the video, you'll see Ray Hartman of St. Louis magazine mocking the idea that Ed Martin is a political outsider:

The amazing thing about Ed Martin, I think, is that he positions himself as one of these angry tea party-ish outsiders. He was the arrogant Chief of Staff in the government on our taxpayer's dime for Matt Blunt for some time! And the idea that he can go from being Matt Blunt's tough guy Chief of Staff to being outside the government suddenly is kind-of strange.

And Bill McClellan responds (23:08):

Well, outside of Washington is the argument that he's made.

Now Ed Martin is certainly "outside of Washington" in the sense that he hasn't ever been elected to federal office, but he also seems to have plenty of D.C. insider connections as well as a D.C. Republican insider approach to nearly every issue. Regardless, McClellan did not say that Martin is "outside of D.C." He said that Martin is arguing that he is "outside of D.C." If he simply means geographically, it's a mind-numbingly meaningless point. If he meant something else, then it's a point that needs to be argued for, and Bill McClellen did not argue for it or even indicate that he intended to argue for it.

Update: here's video of the relevant exchange (h/t to Sean at FiredUp for putting it on YouTube):