The Crone Speaks

Well, here's where we make bad jokes like "Once, twice, three times a lady," or "Three strikes, you're out!" but they seem too trite for Susan Adler Thorp's latest retribution. Far more appropriate, though it opens us to charges of sexism, is Shakespeare's "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorn'd."

For the third time in three weeks, SAT has published a mauling of "a href="http://www.flinnformayor.com">George Flinn. Seems she really holds a grudge. When Flinn's campaign manager snubbed her in a grocery store, she took it very personally and lit into Flinn. A week later, she did it again. Now comes the latest.

Never let it be said that columnists don't use their privilege for personal vengeance.

In this week's installment, she pulls out all the usual guns. There's dodging debates (he'll be in one this Thursday), there's outsider influence (his handlers, hired by the party), there's personal attacks (though if she does it, that's not an issue), there's negative campaigning (though she herself admits it works) and there's continuing to flog a misrepresented story (Flinn's "back room deal" ad). Too bad this isn't a movie, 'cause it's got everything.

Adler writes:

The ad starts by criticizing the quality of public education in
Shelby County and ends with a lament about the purported
backroom deal that was "guaranteed with taxpayer dollars. But
taxpayers didn't even get to vote on it.''

Perhaps Flinn should stick to reading X-rays. It apparently hasn't
occurred to him that taxpayers don't vote on funding of city and
county schools, either. Together these two school systems have
budgets of about $1 billion annually. That's equivalent to building
four arenas every year.

Funding schools is the job of the City Council and County
Commission - the elected representatives of the people. In case
Flinn and his handlers haven't checked, this is a nation built on a
representative form of government - of the people, by the people
and for the people.

And perhaps Adler should be honest. Planning, contracting and building schools is a long, drawn-out public process, hashed out in many school board meetings. Public officials helm the deal. The arena deal came about suddenly, in closed meetings, with press releases about what was happening. Private developers and team owners led the way. The lingering anger in the community, as evidenced in the CA's own letters column, refutes Adler's assertions.

Why would a voice of truth spend so much money to distort the facts?

Many Memphians have asked similar questions of the Commercial Appeal.

Other than fueling voter anger, negative advertising has a darker
side. It tends to alienate voters from the political process,
generates distrust, clouds serious discussion of issues and
erodes faith in our political system.

And yet, the CA dutifully and lasciviously covers it all, and devotes op-ed column space to it as well. Why? Because they know that conflict and discord sell papers.

[Flinn's] prescription for helping ailing schools is nothing more than
sloganeering. It's equivalent to what doctors used to do when
they used leeches to bleed their patients and promised a cure.

We'll let that beauty speak for itself.

Because negative advertising could backfire, Flinn's team hasn't
yet gone hard after Wharton, who is one of the nicest and most
respected men in Shelby County.

That one too. Isn't that a good reason to vote for Wharton?

How this man can keep a straight face as he campaigns on a
promise to bring accountability and openness to county
government is beyond me.

Well there you go now. Who wouldn't want to talk with her, after being characterised that way?

As always, Adler makes much of Flinn's money. Got to remind the voters how "out of touch" he is, after all. Never mind how Wharton lives, we (literally) won't discuss that. And she makes the usual digs about his campaign advisers, like Wharton doesn't have his own. And of course, there's still no discussion of the many controversial cases Wharton has taken over the years and how the public might react to that. Don't want to cause trouble there.

But it's interesting to note that with all this negative attack on her part, she has yet to write of AC Wharton. Not a column yet. Plenty of time to attack Flinn; none for extolling her man.

Take your own advice, Thorp.

Until next time, that is all.