Nobody will ever confuse RedState's Erick Erickson with an actual reporter

I can't get enough of this South Carolina media story about how journalists were flooding the office of Mark Sanford with emails promising friendly coverage if they could land an interview. This was before he admitted to cheating on his wife and using taxpayer money to do it. Back when he appeared to be lost on the Appalachian Trail.

I've already highlighted the questionable efforts by the WSJ's editorial page, as well as ABC News's Jake Tapper. Saving the 'best' for last, let's look at right-wing blogger Erick Erickson.

From The State:

“If he wants something more personal for the blog to push back, I’m happy to help,” wrote Erick Erickson, a writer for RedState.com. On June 23, Erickson ripped “media speculation” about Sanford’s whereabouts.

And boy, did Erickson push back at RedState. Here's what he wrote on June 23:

First, we need to be clear on the facts - not the media speculation:

• Sanford did tell his staff and family where he was going.
• Because he was traveling without a security detail, it was in his best interests that no one knew he was gone.
• His political enemies - Republicans at that - ginned up the media story.
• When confronted by a pestering media, things went downhill.
• Again though, at all times there was no doubt that Sanford's staff and family knew where he was.

As Blue Texan quickly noted at FDL, pretty much everything Erickson wrote about Sanford's escapade turned out to be false.

But here's the kicker. Contacted by The State regarding the email he sent to Sanford's office offering to "push back" on Sanford's behalf, here's what Erickson said:

“I wasn’t trying to be a reporter. I wanted to curtail the story,” Erickson said by e-mail. “Well that didn’t work.”

Love that. Erickson wanted to curtail the story even though, at the time, he had no idea what the facts of the story were. Not that that stopped him from blogging a laundry list of falsehoods.