The Anatomy of a Dodge

When Sen. Collins' failure to investigate corrupt procurement practices first gained traction as an issue in January, the junior senator explained away her inaction by claiming that she didn't want to duplicate the work of others.

In February, her rationale shifted--a spokesman asserted that requests for oversight all the way back to 2003 amounted to a partisan effort by a single overzealous Democrat.

After we debunked that argument, Collins moved on to a third set of justifications: Hearings themselves, she implied, are nothing more than political theatre.

Now that version 3.0 has proven weak, the Collins camp is unveiling its fourth rationalization in a mere six months:

"These misleading claims...have been discredited in the past," Kevin Kelly, Collins' campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

Naturally, no word on what's supposed to have been misleading.

And for the record, we've yet to see even an attempt from the Collins camp to discredit the notion that Collins sat on her hands while Iraq burned, let alone a successful refutation of the charge.

And we've been following the issue pretty closely.