So sayeth Jeff Emerson, a spokesman for Bob Riley, in response to conjecture that Riley was summoned to Washington to confer about the ramifications of the Siegelman/Scrushy sentencing.

Gov. Bob Riley left Alabama on Thursday for an economic development trip to Washington, but by Friday morning Internet blogs had some people wondering if he was whisked away to a high-level Republican strategy session to deal with nagging questions about a possible political conspiracy behind former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman’s prosecution.

That’s simply not true, a Riley spokesman said between laughs.

“Don’t believe those stupid blogs,” Jeff Emerson, a Riley spokesman, said Friday. “I can’t believe reporters are listening to that stuff. Yeah, he’s in Washington today, but he was not called to Washington. It’s got nothing to do with Don Siegelman.”

Riley was meeting with Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne about an Air Force tanker refueling project that could bring 1,000 to 1,500 jobs to the state. If French company Airbus wins the contract, they would build the tankers in the Mobile area.

The governor also planned to have lunch with Rep. Jo Bonner and Sens. Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions before returning, Emerson said.

I bet Rove told Emerson to say all that  (I had to throw that in there for you conspiracy theorists). 

I suspect that the primary blog in question is Doc’s Political Parlor, which published this post on the matter.  There were other blogs that proffered such speculation, but none with the solid history of political neutrality and bona fide access to insiders to rival Doc’s that would incite an actual response from the Gov’s office.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 at 9:39 pm and is filed under Alabama, Blogs, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.