Is Lingle serious? Blaming the media for Bob Awana’s resignation? Seriously.

But now that Gov. Lingle has broken her silence and responded to questions about the extortion case that led to the resignation of her chief of staff, we’re left as many questions as before.

One question concerns timing.

KITV reported: “Monday Lingle said Awana came to her shortly after taking his concerns to the federal government.”

The Advertiser reported similarly in a non-byline story, quoting Lingle: “In his case, he went to the federal authorities with it, and he told me about it.”

But he went to federal authorities and, according to Lingle’s account, must have informed her of the matter well before Patkar’s Tokyo apartment was searched on February 11, 2006. He resigned suddenly 16 months later.

This raises another question: What happened during that 16-month interim?

It appears, again based on reports of Lingle’s explanation, that an internal investigation of the circumstances was one of those things that didn’t happen. After all, Awana was an integral part of the political team.

Again, according to the Advertiser’s account:

Lingle said Awana had told her the secret extramarital relationship was not connected to any state trip, and that she had seen no evidence to suggest he had acted improperly on such trips.

The basis of Lingle’s belief that nothing was connected to any state trip? Awana told her, and that was that.

And Lingle added:

Based on the information that I have, I believe that he always conducted himself appropriately when he was on an official state trip,” she said.

The Star-Bulletin also quoted Lingle on this:

“I have found no information that would lead me to believe it was done on state trips, on state time or with state resources,” Lingle said.

And, later in the story:

“I had no knowledge of anything happening on an official trip,” she said. “We just thought that that if we stopped talking about it, you (the news media) would stop talking about it.

I guess Lingle and staff no longer read the newspapers. On Nov. 10, the Advertiser reported:

Patkar admitted that he hacked into another person’s e-mail and discovered Awana was wooing an Internet girlfriend with promises of money and admission to a Hawai’i nursing school.

In exchange, the woman would join Awana and members of a state trade mission to the Philippines in January 2006.

Patkar admitted to blackmailing Awana by threatening to make public Awana’s extramarital affair and solicitation of women for entertainment at parties during the trade mission.

Other accounts attributed similar descriptions to Patkar’s federal public defender.

From the outside, it’s difficult to tell whether Awana made a limited disclosure to Lingle of his personal involvement with a woman in the Philippines and left her without knowledge of the trade delegation aspect, or whether Lingle’s spin masters decided that would be the best way to play it to limit public damage.

In any case, despite Lingle’s valiant “it’s just a personal matter” defense of her former campaign manager and chief of staff, this isn’t going to be enough to quell those pesky questions.

At the end of its story today, the Advertiser notes:

The Associated Press has petitioned the court to release hundreds of documents, including copies of e-mails to and from Awana.

U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright is expected to rule on release of the documents sometime after Jan. 4.

The Advertiser is not involved in the case.

I’m just not sure how to take that last sentence. Is the Advertiser distancing itself from AP’s action? And who is the clarification aimed at? Unknown, but at least they’re being honest about it.

On a lighter note, this is Mr. Leo, a.k.a. Mr. Neurotic, a.k.a. “Piss Boy”. At this point he was banished from the house after peeing on several bags of groceries we dropped on the kitchen counter when we got home. He get very excited that we’re home and that somehow triggers an apparently overwhelming impulse to leave his mark on what we’ve been carrying. He knows what he’s doing. After doing the deed, he fled down the hall and up his cat tree in an attempt to stay out of my reach, but the long arm of the very upset person made the capture and deposited him outside with the doors (including the cat door) closed.

I suppose I have to admit that his pathetic face broke through my resolve after too much time had passed.