Was Ed Martin's Smokescreen Created By Burning Oil?

Ed Martin has been working overtime lately trying to create a smokescreen to distract from the fact that he filed his financial disclosure forms 300 days later than required by federal law, presented a plethora of easily debunked excuses, and somehow still managed to file his forms incorrectly. This latest ethics flap is devastating for Martin because it highlights the core hypocrisy of his campaign: Martin is trying to run as the "idealistic political outsider" when in fact he has a long history of ethical lapses dating back to his time as the arrogant Chief of Staff who despised government transparency and open discourse. His latest bending of the law is just another example of how he appears to think that he should be held to different standards than "the little people."

A recent press release by the Russ Carnahan campaign provides some strong clues as to the real reasons Martin is working so hard to distract from his own financial disclosure forms. It turns out that Martin, a strong defender of the oil industry throughout the recent Gulf disaster, has many connections to Big Oil companies. From the press release:

With a track record of defending BP and calling for fewer regulations of Big Oil, Ed Martin didn’t want people to know about the hundreds of thousands of dollars in Big Oil stocks his family owns...

Last year, Exxon and Chevron – Big Oil corporations in which Martin’s wife reports owning between $101,000 and $265,000 in stocks – handed over a whopping $8 billion and $5.5 billion in dividend payments to shareholders. Exxon is the Martin family’s single largest stock holding.

The press release goes on to highlight Ed Martin shamelessly defending the oil industry that is destroying the Gulf environment even as I type this:

Even with millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, Ed Martin has unapologetically defended Big Oil, saying that “drilling for oil isn’t what caused this accident.” (KMOX, May 28, 2010)

What’s more, despite mounting evidence that BP caused the devastating spill by deliberately ignoring industry standards and cutting corners in order to maximize their profits, Martin thinks the solution is LESS oversight of Big Oil, saying that corporations like BP should be allowed to drill “anywhere, anytime, anyhow.” (KMOX, May 28, 2010)

In fact, in Martin’s view, the BP spill wasn’t caused by BP breaking the rules in order to make as much money as possible --- no, in Ed Martin’s world, this spill it was caused by “overregulation over the decades as government encroached where it does not belong.”

With serious connections to an industry that is one of the worst, if not the worst, examples of corporate abuse of power, it's no wonder Ed Martin is doing everything he can to distract from his financial disclosure forms.