Before the incident–and attendant snark–went viral, no fewer than three friends had sent me news items about Kirby Delauter, a Frederick County (Maryland) Council Member, who threatened to sue a local journalist named Bethany Rodgers for … wait for it… using his name without permission in a newspaper article.
Think about that for a minute: this jerk is an elected official. Presumably he (a) took an oath to support a Constitution he clearly has never read; (b) was sufficiently active politically to have encountered media previously and perhaps even noted its role and mission.
I know it doesn’t seem possible that there is an elected official dumber than Louie Gohmert, but Councilor Delauter appears to have pulled off that dubious distinction.
Civic deficit, anyone?
Lincoln Plowman of our own City County Council avoided press and threatened having his name printed, I wonder why and what ever happened to him?
Just yesterday I was wondering about the possibility of public figures filing libel charges when blatant lies are sweeping across the media. Up pops this blog about simply mentioning an elected official’s name in a news article without permission. While I am fed up with celebraties breakups and makeups and those interminable baby bumps; political figures are a different matter. They place themselves before the public at every opportunity; their decision to run for public office is tacit permission to run their name as often as possible and election is automatic agreement to be before the public in the media. Did Delauter give permission to all media to use his name publicly during his campaign? Was it pollution in the air or water that bred these Republican fools (including the voters) who have come into control during the past decade? How were most of the Democrats immune to this epidemic of idiocy? Can it in some way be connected to the anti-vaccine group still raging while childhood diseases are returning to endanger our children? There must be an explanation somewhere for the current GOP who have wasted no time beginning their battle in Congress against Americans and America.
I want to congratulate you for the correct use of “fewer” in your blog today. Hooray! As for elected “fools,” no surprise there.
Louis Gohmert isn’t dumb. He is actually quite well educated. He is as nutty as a fruitcake though. It is easy to miss the distinction at times.
Liberals believe that we are all on the same team or “side”. Conservatives believe that they are on an opposing “side”. And competing for positions on their own team. They are against everybody and everybody is against them.
For Delauter, it was a matter of fighting back against the assault of journalism.
Really?
Can’t claim to know the details but I can imagine that he was being held accountable for doing something stupid. And his response in typical conservative fashion was to attack.
Perhaps the rise in idiocy that we have been exposed to over the last few decades is humanity lining up as a result of the now indisputable fact that we have overpopulated our world and resolution is at hand. Conservatives are preparing to be survivors of the process of deciding who will be part of ongoing humanity and who has to leave now. Liberals are assuming that we are smart enough to do what has to be done to solve the problem for everybody, both now and future beings.
Both wordviews are self fulfilling.
I think he needs to sue the reporter, and then the reporter should ask every journalist he knows to cover every bit of the story and put on every front page, so the official can be officially connected with stupid. Maybe the official can sue the public then for thinking he is incompetent.
I followed your links, and it appears that Mr. Delauter has apologized, and that the story was run in the Washington Post. Not the kind of publicity he would have wanted.
When new school board members were elected in Indiana, the Indiana School Board invited (as they may still do) those members to Indianapolis for a frank talk with their attorney. During the meeting, the attorney emphasized that theses folks were just members, not the whole board, and what they said as as member might not accomplish their goals but could get them and the school district in a pile of trouble. These folks usually returned chastened and much more careful in their behavior than they were before their election.
Mr. Delauter has begun to lean the limits of his office, and that he is not a philosopher-king, but just a guy elected to do a job in which small behaviors can have big consequences.