To Defend or not to Defend Brown, today's double speak from a hack

From today's State Newspaper:

Mark Rey, undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources, said he didn’t want U.S. Rep. Henry Brown to receive the March 12 letter before he testified before a U.S. House committee on which the South Carolina Republican sits. “I’d just as soon have him not take a chunk of hide out of me,” Rey said Wednesday. ...
Rey defended his decision to intercept the letter as “a reasonable precaution” to prevent Brown from “stewing on it while he’s sitting up there on the dais” of the U.S. House Natural Resources subcommittee, which oversees management of national parks and forests.

- and in the same article -

During the March 26, 2004, phone conversation, Brown made “an implied threat” of increased congressional scrutiny of U.S. Forest Service programs if the criminal charge and fines against him were pursued, Sadler said. Rey, though, said Sadler and Thomas might have misunderstood Brown. “Some of our folks assume when they’re dealing with an angry member of Congress that repercussions will follow,” Rey said.

Emphasis is added. It should also be noted that Mr. Rey is "former timber lobbyist and a political appointee of President Bush." Here's hoping Henry Brown gets the well deserved boot in November.

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