The Christine O'Donnell kerfuffle

If you are a candidate for U.S. Senate who's made some misleading statements about your educational background and then someone finds more false claims in a profile posted on a popular social networking site, you probably need to craft a serious response. And if you respond that someone else created the profile to embarrass or entrap you, you need to do more than shrug it off an annoying hoax. (Especially when new evidence comes to light.)

Which basically brings us up to date with Christine O'Donnell, the Republican Senate candidate in Delaware, and the mysterious LinkedIn profile that got yanked offline yesterday. After the Washington Post and this blog pointed out inaccuracies in the profile, she called the profile a sham. Who planted this alleged educational time bomb? No one knows, and the O'Donnell campaign doesn't seem that interested in finding out.

For those who'd rather dismiss this as a liberal media witch hunt, conservative blogger Patterico offers some wisdom:

I am amazed (and yet I’m not) by the people who want me to ignore this.  Joe Biden misrepresented his own academic record and I mocked him unmercifully for it.  Why would O’Donnell deserve different treatment?

Had she simply padded the resume and then fessed up, mockery would probably be all that O'Donnell had to contend with. If it turns out she lied about constructing the LinkedIn profile page, the political repercussions could be much worse.