Also on AETN’s schedule today is the 2 p.m. live streaming of the debate by candidates for attorney general, led by Democrat Nate Steel and Republican Leslie Rutledge.

We can hope Rutledge will finally be held to account on questions about her checkered work history, particularly her sad stint as an attorney for troubled children at the Department of Human Services. Why won’t she release the records that bear on her “gross misconduct” there?

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She left some unfortunate crumbs about her record in e-mail released by DHS under FOI requests. I’ve noted before the indications of sloppy work performance found there. 

Amanda Crumley of Southern Progress, a group that works to advance Democratic candidates, has further mined that email and written a tough piece on Rutledge’s lack of qualifications, evidenced in part by her raunchy correspondence (not just the bad judgment of sending along a piece of racist claptrap from a friend.) Wrote Crumley:

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Rutledge had the audacity to say in a television interview on Monday that a “black individual” told her the email sounded “country”. Wow. Her defense is an admission that the language is offensive and she’s just dickering over which group of people it offends? This woman is an embarrassment. How she has made it this far is beyond comprehension.

It is Leslie Rutledge’s own words that will continue to cause trouble for her. As a woman, the Rutledge emails struck me as crude and most unladylike. Closer inspection reveals an overall Rutledge mindset that is patently offensive to women, minorities, young men and even short people.

It is no wonder that GOP Chair Doyle Webb trumped up a bogus legal complaint about Nate Steel yesterday. Having Doyle Webb as your exemplar of sound legal practice is, in a word, laughable. Consider his own tawdry past.

UPDATE: Matt Campbell at Blue Hog rounds up everything you need to know about Rutledge’s flawed candidacy and her ill-judged e-mail habits.

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