Friday, November 4th, 2005...6:12 pm
Citizen Misses the Point
The Tucson Citzen ran a “plague on both your houses” editorial that has unfortunately become all to common in our media. They neglected to mention the most important aspect of the spat between Kathleen Dunbar and Karin Uhlich.
Too often, the media would rather observe an argument between two politicians and dismiss it as a “he said/she said” and not even try to see if there is an objective truth behind the argument. There are facts here that can be ascertained, but it is much easier to throw up one’s hands and mutter “politics as usual,” as if it is still clever to say that.
They act as though the fact that Uhlich brought up a question about Dunbar’s activities and motivations is somehow the same as Dunbar’s heavy handed response. Yeah, they are all politicians, right?
So, what is the real outrage here? Well, let’s just for a second assume this is a political argument between two politicians and the voters must sort out a political question. Notice a key word there: political. This argument is supposed to be settled by a vote of the people.
However, Dunbar has decided that she is somehow better than an average politician and cannot be criticised in the political arena. She has decided to sue for $1,000,000 alleging “mental and physical anguish.” She is trying to settle a political argument using the legal system. She has done this to intimidate not only political figures, but even normal citizens for expressing an opinion.
I would think that this would matter to journalists who cherish the First Ammendment. The Citizen’s sister paper is suing over a Sheriff’s Department Task Force meeting and the press’s right to know. So, obviously they love to talk about press and speech freedoms when it is their own. I’m still waiting to see one of the papers editorialize against the intimidation of citizens in this matter.
1 Comment
November 4th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
Interesting experience a few minutes ago with Katy Dunbar. She was on the Imus/Cox/Collier show in the last half hour (6:30 - 7:00), and Nicole, Fred, and Don couldn’t kiss her ass enough. [As an aside, the previous night, Fred I. opined that Kathleen "Couldn't lose fast enough" for his taste].
I called in an asked if she was taking questions. [I had intended to ask about the garbage fee]. I was told she was. I was transferred into the studio line, and after a few seconds I heard “no questions!” (don’t know who said that) and the phone was hung up.
Seems Katy might be running a little scared, and doesn’t want to hear from us citizens. As an aside, I was one of what (she claimed) were only 2 people who had sent her “hate mail” about her decision to sue. “Hate mail” is a bit of a loaded term, in my mind. Am *I* about to be sued now, too?
Or perhaps I should sue *her* for defamation and mental distress? This whole incident (to her credit she did reply to my email with a canned PR statement) is causing me a great deal of emotional and physical distress.