Ummmmm…

Schnurer, who wrote that he works mostly with Democrats but also three Republican governors, including two unnamed potential 2016 contenders, called Burke’s campaign “perhaps the most efficient and detail-oriented with which I’ve ever worked.”

Schnurer attributed the error in Burke’s jobs plan to deadline pressure.

He said that in the final hours before publication his team drew from their previous work for other campaigns and rewrote it “to avoid any suggestion of impropriety,” but the plan had undergone so many revisions that the edits and footnotes in track-changes mode made the document look like the Tokyo subway map.

“In the heat of the final changes, someone obviously didn’t incorporate the proper text,” Schnurer wrote. “That’s politics. However it occurred, I’ll take the blame, because my work ultimately failed my client.”

He kind of undercuts his characterization of the Burke campaign being “detail-oriented” when he goes on to try to explain the plagiarism scandal as a mistake made in the “heat of final changes.” Plus, it is worth noting that there wasn’t any kind of deadline to release a plan – except perhaps a self-imposed deadline. Remember that this plan was released months after she began campaigning and people were asking for it. If it was truly just a mistake made in the heat of final drafting, why couldn’t they wait another day to fix it before releasing it?

Given that there wasn’t a real deadline here, there are only two obvious scenarios. Scenario #1 is that it is as Schnurer says and it was a mistake made in the bustle of getting it out according to a deadline. Given that there was not an external deadline, this would indicate that Burke failed to properly review it and delay the release until it was right. That would be an indication of poor leadership and a failure to be “detail-oriented.” Scenario #2 is that it is as it appears… Burke plagiarized others’ work and just figured it wasn’t a big deal. In a friendly media environment, nobody thought ahead enough to consider the ramifications of being exposed.

But the more interesting question is why is Schnurer talking now? Why two days after Burke’s failed campaign came to an end? The story indicates that he promised the Burke campaign to stay silent for the duration of the campaign, but his comments would probably have aided Burke’s defense during the campaign. My best guess is that Schnurer is just trying to control the damage to his own reputation.