According to our latest study, 94.7% of local politics is what many people call "inside baseball." If you're not somehow connected to a franchise you don't know who the players are. Civilians go about their daily lives blissfully unaware of how local government and local politicians operate. The parties know this and sometimes take advantage.
Letters-to-the-Editor are frequently abused by politicians.
For example, in a recent letter to the editor in The Record, we learned that Ann Marie Tracey, a constituent of Peter Ryan (D-3rd), was disappointed in Ryan's performance....on the City Council. This disappointment must have cut deep because Tracey, who voted for Ryan in 2005, stated she would not vote for Ryan again!
What Ms. Tracey failed to disclose was that in 2005 she voted in the 5th District, represented by Mr. Krogh.
Of course, Ms. Tracey could have told the truth. For example:
- Ms. Tracey could have stated that, "I don't live in Ryan's district but if I did I would not vote for him."
or - "I never voted for Ryan and won't vote for him again."
or - "If I had lived in District 3 in 2005 I would have voted for Ryan and I would have become so disappointed with his performance that if I lived in District 3 during the subsequent election I would not vote for him."
All these statements, although true, are clumsy.
Armed with this full disclosure, our forensic team has concluded that Ms. Tracey lied or, in the alternative, she did not write or read the letter attributed to her. But, if she didn't write the letter, who did?
Oh, Tracey is also the sister of Tom Casey, Chair of the Troy Republican Committee.
Mr. Ryan addressed these concerns in Friday's Record. He characterized Tracey as "misrepresenting" the facts. Why don't we just call it what it is? A lie.
What do we tell the children?
No comments:
Post a Comment