A local candidate for the County Commission has been caught misquoting the newspaper. This is not in itself interesting; politicians miss the truth sometimes, by accident and on purpose. What caught my eye was the newspaper's response in the last issue before the election:
Republican County Commission candidate Stacey Easterling and her puppet master Sam Rashid are running the most devious, deceitful and dishonest campaign that we can remember. Their political advertising treats the truth like society treats victims of leprosy -- they avoid it at all costs.
One of many examples is three quotes she included in her mailer that were credited to La Gaceta and supposedly bolsters her claim of having "values you can trust." Anyone who reads this column knows that there has not been one positive article appearing here about Easterling since she took office.
The first quote she used and credited to this column is, "... (Easterling) ... is willing to stand for family values..." This she pulled from a reprint of a letter SHE wrote. She quoted herself and credited it to La Gaceta.
The next one she used was, "... (Easterling) wants to reaffirm the values ... of this nation's founding ..." Here is the whole quote from our column with the words underlined (noder's note: in bold for the web) that she took out of context to create the illusion that we believe she has any values, "But our favorite passage is 'I consider it a reaffirmation of our Christian values upon which our great nation was founded.' If Easterling wants to reaffirm the values practiced at the time of this nation's founding, why doesn't she apply 18th Century values to her own life. If she did, she would need to quit the County Commission, resign from the bar, get married, get pregnant, stay home and keep her opinion to herself."
The next quote she created and credited to La Gaceta reads, " ... Easterling will ... secure votes of family value conservatives ..." The real quote reads, "Or is the message that Easterling will waste tax dollars on lawyers defending her weak position so long as she can secure some votes of family value conservatives?"
We understand why Easterling would make up positive things about herself, but why credit La Gaceta? Is her comprehension of the English language so poor that she misunderstood our point? If so, let us put it into words that even a toddler can appreciate: STACEY BAD! STACEY GO HOME!
Stacey Easterling was soundly whipped, losing the election by ten points (45% to 55%).
Moral of the story: Don't ever piss off an editor.
SOURCE: "As We Heard It" by Patrick Manteiga, in La Gaceta, Friday, September 6, 2002, p. 16.