Over at the D&C blogs, both Tom Tobin and James Lawrence have pieces up defending Randy Kuhl’s ill-advised remarks about “packing.” Frankly, neither piece makes much sense. Here’s Tobin:

His remark about “packing,” referring to a weapon, was completely off-handed and were not in the context of complaining about the anti-war protesters or protecting himself from constituents.

Then what was it about? Just something that had been on his mind? “Gee, I’m thinking about packing” is a completely natural thing to say at the end of an interview with an editorial board, apropos of nothing?

Here’s Lawrence:

There are a lot of people carrying pistols these days who we all should be worried about. I don’t believe Kuhl is one of them.

To the contrary, there are court records that indicate that he is exactly the kind of person carrying a pistol who we should all be worried about. (Let the record show that I did not link to these records here.)

Lawrence, to his credit, does say

Admittedly, I was somewhat taken aback that he brought up the subject yesterday at the close of our Editorial Board meeting with him. It certainly was worth blogging about.

Now, I’m not trying to criticize Lawrence or Tobin here. I’ve been there, in the situation of telling someone that when Person X said or did Y, they didn’t really mean it. When I do this, I know that I’m not being truthful, that what I’m really trying to say is “Person X screwed up here, but he/she is basically a decent person so cut him/her some slack.”

That’s the point of these pieces — they’re saying “Yes, Randy Kuhl is thinking of carrying a gun to ward off angry constituents, but he’s basically a decent enough guy otherwise.” And I agree. I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking that he’s not a decent guy, that he votes with the worst president in history 85% of the time.

But he also holds countless town hall meetings, braving bad weather and angry constituents. And his staff has been courteous and professional in all of our dealings with them, including when they comment on this site.

None of which means that he should be wandering around his office with a pistol in his pants.