I was unaware that Mr Weldon's response had been edited by his own office, rather than by the Inquirer.
But it certainly does raise the question of why a local congressman would be restricted to 600 words, when the Inquirer has 750 word columns on the op-ed pages every day. And while Mr Weldon may have edited it himself, the idea that it would have been published as "A reader's response," with no indication of whom the author was until the very end strikes me as a very odd way of doing things -- unless it was the editor's purpose to minimize attention to it.
Finally, it also seems a bit odd to call Mr Ferrick's column today as "Ferrick's surrender." If it was a surrender, it was one with a couple of parting shots fired! Mr Ferrick noted a claim that Mr Weldon's daughter was so deeply intrenched in lobbying that the Los Angeles Times said thet "the appearance of conflict, of pay-to-play, is overwhelming." Mr Weldon himself asked the House Ethics Committee to investigate the matter, and since that committee hasn't found any wrongdoing on Mr Weldon's part, Mr Ferrick decided that it was "an inert, spineless body."
Perhaps Mr Ferrick's initial "I want to go on record as saying I am never going to tussle with U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon again" could be interpreted as a statement that this is his last column on Mr Weldon. But I have a difficult time seeing it as Mr Ferrick's surrender.
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