Remember when the state Republican Party filed FOIA requests to try to catch the authors of the now-defunct Blue Hog Report blogging and tweeting on state time? Republican Party of Arkansas Executive Director Chase Duggar said its FOIA of Blue Hog was unconnected to the FOIA requests made of Arkansas Secretary of State Mark Martin’s office, though he admitted to meeting with Martin and former press aide Alice Stewart the day before the party acted.
Last week, on state time, Martin tweeted about @ArkDems’ tweets on the debt talks, including “LOL! I love it when liberals blow a gasket. It makes passing in the straight-away easy.” Wouldn’t that be tweeting about politics on state time? Spokesman Alex Reed said no, because Martin sent the tweets from his personal cell phone, not a state computer, and that the tweets weren’t political: “I don’t feel like the word ‘liberal’ is partisan. Partisan, in my mind, would imply one of two parties. I’m sorry if people feel like the word liberal is synonymous with one of the major parties.”
Something tells us the Republican Party of Arkansas isn’t going to be quite as concerned about Martin’s office tweeting as they were about Blue Hog’s, whose authors, it turned out, never used state time to do their blogging and tweeting.