Thursday, August 26, 2010

Rep. Clere has deleted this comment. And deleted it. And deleted it.

"Can you explain your position on tolls for the Ohio River Bridges Project? Thanks."

Chuck Freiberger answered the question -- well, sort of. We'll be pressing him for greater accuracy.

For Ron Grooms' belated answer, check the list here. Grooms won't tell you what he thinks until the bi-state authority tells him what to think.

Shane Gibson openly provided his answer in the Tribune, before the question was asked.

That leaves Ed Clere, who spent the past 24 hours deleting my question from his Facebook site, deleting the questions of others from his Facebook site, and in general terms, mimicking the instincts of Third World tinpots more than embodying the intelligent, reasonable person I've known him to be.

Someone, anyone: What gives?

I believe that censorship constitutes an answer of sorts, don't you? A constituent asking a legislator a question about his position at the Facebook page, one fully intended as his legislative site, is not "cyber-bullying" or comparable to spray-painting graffiti.

However, removing it more than once plainly is censorship, and seeking in all this to ignore the question is a serious lapse of judgment by almost anyone's standards, Democrat or Republican, left or right, up or down. I persist in thinking that there's a rational explanation, because it personally saddens me to contemplate otherwise.

Someone?

Anyone?

3 comments:

Jeff Gillenwater said...

I'm sure there's an explanation but I find it hard to believe that it's rational. The best thing that could happen at this point is an apology, a correction to the Facebook site's methodology, and an actual answer to the question.

It's not like the question can be avoided, although it looks like several are trying unsuccessfully.

Isn't it amazing that after so much cheerleading and the "absoluteness" you capture so well in your column, that none of the state candidates want to be associated with the Ohio River Bridges Project?

Isn't this precisely the time they should be stepping up to explain (objectively, unlike Dalby, Stemler, et al) why ORBP is exactly the best solution, worth billions of dollars, tolls, and a couple decades of construction AND, in the public interest, decrying the misleading tactics of 1si and the Bridges Coalition?

G Coyle said...

At the this intersection of the old Colonial power structure vs. the rambunctious new media it is enjoyable to watch the sparks fly. Right Ed Clere is burning... "oh god, two way communication, since when this this happen, I wasn't elected to listen to constituents, I was elected to protect the status quo... delete...delete, why isn't this working?!"

...almost as funny as the masked maggots of the blogosphere expecting to be taken seriously.

Curtis Morrison said...

Ed should move over here to Louisville. The old guard rewards that kind of covert sneakiness with handsome campaign contributions.