Ogden City mayor is shocked by the civil rights watchdog's "hard questions"
By Monotreme
I was amused by the story in today's Standard-Examiner, "Mayor denies electioneering as ACLU investigates 2007 vote".
"I thought they were going to explain to me how wonderful I am," says the Mayor (I am paraphrasing only slightly).
"Instead, they asked me a lot of hard questions."
Of course, he's never received any formal complaints. What, exactly, did he think that having the ACLU investigate electioneering charges was? Some sort of friendly gesture? I'd say that hiring attorneys is pretty "formal" in my book.
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17 comments:
Mono, I believe when lying little matty refers to "hard questions" he means that it's rather difficult to remain consistant, and remember all his previous falsehoods. He also needed to sort his recollections of who might have been in his pre-elction strategy and planning meeting where these things were coordinated as well as his post election bash at the BL Hotel where the particants imbibed heavily and boasted of their exploits.
How about the absentee ballot dirty tricks that godfrey played. Was that just the norm of a every day politics.
How about the dirty tricks of having his brother tell people that they couldn't vote, that is not electioneering? Get real, no formal complaints? Is that what electioneering is all about is having a formal complaint? So go ahead and break the law and then there should be a formal complaint or it is ok to do what ever I want.
Mayor your baby ways are showing through, although we already knew that.
Rudi.
When is the booby Geiger trial in south Ogden? Oh there is another broken law of Godfrey's campaign, is to steal the opponents signs.
Godfrey henchman's trial date set for February 28, 2008
"I'm surprised to hear of these colored folks having problems voting. None of them ever complained to me."
Lester Mattox
Governor of Georgia
circa 1960's
I wonder if lying little matty told the ACLU the story of the three bears, Hanzel and Grettle or about the time potato nose made is harrowing escape after entering Spagos and being accosted by Wolfgang Puck's salad chef, barely getting out with his nasal hood ornament in tact. Puck's patrons really enjoy a good German potato salad.
Word from the prosecutor in the short deck sign trial is that Bernie has submitted in total the challenged voter list from the last municipal election. He figure's that some of these folks may reside in So. Ogden and need to be weeded out.Should be an interesting jury selection proccess.
Bill
Is Bobby Geiger actually taking this all the way to a jury trial? Sounds like a heck of a big public expense to adjudicate such a small matter. Didn't they offer him a cheap ($50) solution at the preliminary hearing?
Does this mean in an attempt to salvage his "reputation" and save a few bucks he is willing to make the public pay thousands for a jury trial? I hope that if he is found guilty the judge fines him enough to pay for all the public expense. Seems to me that they just ought to give him a fair trial and then hang him.
Where and when is the trial. This could end up being a bigger deal than the famous Scopes trial! The Geiger monkey trial! Maybe Chris Buttars could come up and defend him!
Dontcha just love it?
I too had planned to attend Bob Geiger's trial.
But the clerk tells me Bob's attorney and the prosecutor reached an agreement.
She said the trial is canceled.
If I'm wrong let me know.
I was planning to go and watch since they don't have donkey diving around here anymore and that would be the closest thing to it.
On The Mayor's Interview with the ACLU:
Two points worth noting, I think. First, the Republican Mayor of Ogden found the ACLU's questions "outrageous." Forgive us, Mr. Mayor, but you are an elected official, questions have been raised concerning actions by your supporters at the polls. That you find even the asking of such questions to be "outrageous" is yet another indication of what others have called "the arrogance of power." "How dare you ask me that?" is something subjects of monarchs used to be asked by the nobility. Such a reaction to being questioned is never appropriate for an elected official when the question regards his conduct as a public man. Not in this country anyway. Not even in Utah.
Second: The mayor said he was "stunned" when the ACLU attorneys asked him "whether his supporters had placed some large campaign signs inside polling places on election day." Mayor Godfrey responded [according to Mr. Schwebke] as follows:
"Why would I ever do that?" he asked with a chuckle. "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard."
Note: the ACLU people asked the mayor about actions by his supporters at polling stations. The mayor replied as if he had been asked about his actions. Thus he avoided answering the question he had been asked. This is what Woodward and Bernstein dubbed "a non-denial denial." He appears, on quick reading, to have said his followers did nothing wrong, when in fact he said nothing of the kind. What he said was the he had done nothing wrong, leaving the question about his supporters at the polls unanswered.
To be fair to the Mayor, there are two possible explanations for this. One is that in fact the ACLU attorneys asked him if he had instructed his supporters to erect signs at the polling places, in which case his answer would have been perfectly appropriate. If that's what happened, Mr. Schwebke got the question wrong, or confused the mayor's answer to one question with his answer to another.
The second possibility is that Mr. Schwebke got the question, and its answer, exactly right, and that the Mayor simply dodged answering the question he was asked by asking another that he was not asked instead. If that is the case, it would have been useful for Mr. Schwebke to have reported that the Mayor did not directly answer the question he was asked.
But in the end, since I take self-serving denials of venality on the part of elected officials with a sizable grain of salt anyway, what I took most from the story was the Mayor's regal condescending attitude toward his subjects: "How dare they question me?"
This is a republic, Mr. Mayor. Questioning elected officials is not only the right of its citizens --- not subjects --- it is also their responsibility as citizens --- not subjects. Just as it is the responsibility of the press to question those in power. All the time. However "outrageous" and annoying Sir Matthew of Wasatch, Lord Mayor of Ogden, may find it.
Citizen:
Wow. I haven't seen donkey diving, or really its close cousin, horse diving, since the last time I visited the Steel Pier in Atlantic city some thirty five years ago. Now, if Hizzonah and his Royal Court were looking of a unique attraction to bring to Ogden, that would fill the Frontrunner trains with fun-seekers from Salt Lake City thither, donkey diving would be it. Certainly no competition that I know of between here and Atlantic City to the east, or the Pacific Coast to the west. And once the tower and tank are built, it's a very low maintenance attraction: the donkey and gravity do all the work.
Curm, high adventure donkey diving was on lying little matty's drawing board but was removed when they could not find a saddle that fir Stuart Reid.
Curm:
I am not at all certain that the Mayor is an accurate reporter of the questions asked, or the answers given.
In the absence of confirmation by the ACLU or another independent source, I'd say the Mayor is probably the least reliable account one could find.
Like all human beings, he remembers the questions, and his answers, the way he wants to remember them, and not necessarily the way things actually transpired.
I don't think, for example, that they spent an hour talking about the placement of campaign signs. I bet there were some other issues that came up, that either the Mayor has forgotten to tell us about, or does not want to reveal at this moment in time.
I await the ACLU's report.
Mono:
Probably right. Was unclear to me that Mr. S. was getting all his information only from the Mayor. I wonder if the ACLU guys will do a report on the conversation with Hizzonah. More likely they'll only do a report on the entire election day situation, along with recommendations and/or any agreements they reached with the County people, particularly vis a vis training of poll workers. That may draw on information they got in the chat with Hizzonah, but probably won't recount the interview.
If the Mayor was Mr. S's only source, it's interesting that the Mayor choose to convey things in a way that emphasized his arrogance and contempt for those who had the temerity to question him at all.
Curm,
Those suffering from terminal arrogance don't realize (or care) that they come across as having contempt for those who question them. The Mayor is the only one who matters as far as he is concerned.
I feel sorry for Godfrey, being grilled by two highly competent but backsliding Utah women who don't know their place.
What's the matter with these ladies?
Don't they know that Godfrey has an irrevocable lifetime temple recommend?
Matt Godfrey wouldn't make a pimple on a true and real Temple recommend holder's ass. The closest the little liar will come to being a true pimple is on judgment day when the good lord pops him as if he were one.
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