Illegal Forward Pass....

At 4:58 in the p.m. yesterday, Sen. John McCain's hard-working headquarters deputy communications director, Brian Rogers, forwarded to the campaign press list the statement released by McCain's Senate office on Sen. Russ Feingold's Iraq withdrawal bill.

He was trying to be helpful.

But it turns out that Senate ethics rules frown on such forwarding of official Senate press releases from campaign e-mail addresses.

It's a minor thing... and totally inadvertent... but the commissar of Senate ethics has an extra obligation to be fully attentive to these rules, especially as the Democratic National Committee is not going to give McCain one mole of breathing room over the next six months.