Thursday, December 13th, 2007...7:08 pm
Harper’s Weakly
Last week, I wrote a little bit about an e-mail exchange between Rep. Chad Campbell and anti-tax advocate Tom Jenney. To the credit of both Campbell and Jenney, the exchange was actually about policy differences. The e-mails were in regard to an article that Jenney wrote in the Phoenix Business Journal, and were “cc’d” to other legislators and people at that paper.
Of course, no political discussion can stay centered on issues as long as Jack Harper is around to make accusations. The less related to actual facts those accusations are, the better in Jack’s mind. He decided to use this as a chance to make a snide attack on Campbell, and he “cc’d” that to other legislators and the Business Journal as well.
(Snide attacks? Doesn’t Harper realize that that is my job?)
The thing that struck me the most was that Harper’s e-mail was sent to the press. Either Harper made the sort of “rookie” mistake he went after Campbell for, or he was so proud of himself that he wanted the world to know that he dissed Campbell.
Anyhow, it didn’t take long for the Business Journal to write an article on the incident (full article only available by subscription). I have a bit of trouble with the headline, “Ireland trip sparks battle over research funding.” The headline implies that the battle was over policy. They are giving Harper way too much credit.
Harper’s main accusation against Campbell was that he was on a taxpayer funded trip. The trouble was, it wasn’t. Harper doesn’t seem to let this little fact get in the way of continuing to attack Campbell and other legislators on the trip (which included Speaker Jim Weiers, Harper’s party leader in the House). This is from the article:
Despite the political infighting, Harper said he stands by his criticism, especially for his fellow Republicans who traveled with the group.
“I hold Republicans to a higher standard than democrats,” he said. “I expect the democrats to fleece the tax payers of Arizona.”
Um, once again, Jack…the trip was privately funded. Facts are such stupid things.
Oh, Jack, how is that investigation of Harry Mitchell going?
Leave a Reply