Todd Akin Seems Proud of His Ability to Convey False Information

First Todd Akin's senate campaign sent out a press release that strongly implied, without actually saying, that he had been endorsed by Paul Ryan.

Then his political director tweeted that he had been endorsed by Paul Ryan:

And on Mark Reardon's show, Akin clearly dodged Reardon's question about whether Ryan's statement was actually an endorsement:



By the way, Todd Akin was not endorsed by Paul Ryan.

What seems so strange to me is that pretending it's an endorsement seems to have so little added value (assuming you think being endorsed by a guy who wants to end Medicare as we know it is valuable) over just saying that Paul Ryan likes Akin's Congressional record. Why not just be honest and upfront about the fact that it wasn't an official endorsement? And it's not like he could possibly think that no one would find out that it wasn't a real endorsement. The only explanation I can think of is that he's trying to prove to the tea party types that he can play that "passing on wildly false information without technically lying" game they're so found of. But even so, he failed, because his political director falsely claimed that he was endorsed by Ryan.