Conservative columnist William F. Buckley Jr. snickered in his nationally syndicated column that Turnipseed had "a name Charles Dickens would have lost sleep for not having invented."
In Washington, D.C., officials with the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign were telling reporters that Turnipseed gave $500 to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
On Feb. 5, the Salon online magazine reported that Bush-Cheney spokesman Terry Holt, citing the Turnipseed-to-Edwards donation, questioned whether the motives behind Turnipseed's comments about Bush's service were "pure" or part of a "political attack."
That donation, as the Mobile Register was able to confirm on Thursday, was actually given to the Edwards campaign by Will Turnipseed, a 34-year-old waiter at Wynlakes Country Club in Montgomery.
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