Norm Coleman went into the lion's den Thursday, or at least what passes for it in the Star Tribune's editorial-page warrens. When commentary editor Eric Ringham grilled Coleman about the FBI investigation of donor/pal Nasser Kazeminy, the ex-senator turned the table on his inquisitors.

Coleman — who the Strib wisely videotaped — again charged investigative reporters Paul McEnroe and Tony Kennedy with "inserting themselves in a Democrat campaign commercial" by chasing him at a late-October campaign event as DonorGate was breaking.

You can watch Coleman's case here — it's more entertaining than any write-up I can provide.

Tellingly, Norm elides reporter Kevin Duchschere's key point: McEnroe and Kennedy tried repeatedly to get Coleman's comments before they were anywhere near the DFL trackers' lenses.

To me, that buttresses McEnroe's previous explanation: the senator's own stonewalling brought this to a highly YouTubed head.

Given that Coleman's allegation is back in the news, I thought it timely to republish the full version of McEnroe's email, originally posted here in February. The jumping off point was an earlier interview between WCCO's Esme Murphy and Coleman:

First, Esme Murphy is to be commended for correcting Sen. Coleman’s claims that we inserted ourselves into a campaign ad that aired showing us trying to ask him questions regarding the lawsuit.

We made every attempt to have a "conversation," as the senator put it, but we were continually stonewalled by his staff in the days prior to our attempt to talk to him during his campaign stop in St. Cloud.

Our calendars and notes show the following:

We started calling the Coleman staff on [Monday] Oct. 27th in an attempt to get comment from the senator about the lawsuit. We contacted Megan Turnell, a staffer. We told her we needed to speak with Sen. Coleman. At some point she said that someone would be getting back to us. We waited. And then we waited some more.

On [Tuesday] Oct. 28th, we continued to make calls and expanded beyond Turnell because we were not getting any response. Then, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. that day, we left a phone message with at least two, if not three, people close to Coleman. Those people included Tom Steward, his press secretary who had months earlier facilitated an interview with Coleman regarding the relationship of Nasser Kazeminy. We also again contacted Turnell.

We made it clear in those calls that unless we heard back from someone, we would have to ask our questions about the Kazeminy suit while the senator was making a campaign stop. Glenn Howatt, our colleague in the investigative reporting unit, heard the phone calls. The calls were made by Kennedy and they were polite, professional and non-threatening. There was full disclosure of our need to talk with the senator about an important story we were reporting.

You have to remember the last thing we would want to do, given the nature of our work, is to ask these questions in public because we had this exclusively and didn’t want to alert other reporters. When we got to work on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 29th, there were no messages or emails — not even a no comment — from Coleman’ staff.

When we arrived in St. Cloud on Oct. 29th, about an hour before Coleman’s lunch stop at the Holiday Inn, we signed in and made it clear to the senator's advance man that we needed to talk to the senator. When the "Hope Express" arrived, one of Coleman’s staffers confronted us and told us that the senator would not be taking any questions before, during and after his remarks.

(We found it interesting that Gov. Pawlenty, also in the entourage, walked up to us, greeted us pleasantly.)

McEnroe politely told the staffer we would like to talk to the senator. Instead, he "babysat" us, sitting next to us during the senator’s remarks and then tried to block us from getting to senator as he departed.

Kennedy was physically blocked by one of the senator’s security guards as the senator walked briskly to his vehicle.

We tried to ask the senator to respond to the questions we had but he wouldn’t even roll down his window. His staff drove him away and when the news media filtered away, he returned to confront us.

Coleman accused us of "ambushing" him and we corrected him, telling him repeatedly of our attempts to get ahold of him and that he should ask his communications staff to explain why he wasn't informed. The video Sen. Coleman refers to speaks for itself. We tried to do our job in a professional manner.

We believe the senator, in his interview with Ms. Murphy, misrepresented the facts.