UPDATE: Boss Godfrey has a change of
Ogden City municipal election clock ticks to within 38 days of the November 3, 2009 zero hour, Ace reporter Schwbeke reports this morning, (a mere two days after the release of Godfrey's bogus golf course survey) , on Boss Godfrey's latest attempt to make a mockery of the democratic election process. We learn from Mr. Schwebke this morning that agents for Boss Godfrey's Propaganda Television Station, Channel 17, staged a command performance taping yesterday, on the ninth floor of Ogden City Municipal Building, of a thinly-attended dog and pony show, which the Standard-Examiner politely calls a "debate":
• Majority of council candidates attend debateAlthough some creative editor in a dark back room at the Std-Ex (cleverly adopting Mr. Schwebke's phrase "a majority of city council candidates") attempted to create the headline illusion that some form of "debate" occurred during yesterday's private taping, the truth of the matter, as reported by Mr. Schwebke, is that the only thing which may have resembled debate occurred in the the Ward 3 race, wherein incumbent Doug Stephens and challenger Patrick Dean both did obediently show up on command, to field a series of questions, carefully composed by Boss Godfrey's own employees at the TV Station. As to the other three races we wonder... did Godfrey's employees from the Godfrey Propaganda Channel have the audacity to go ahead and tape three "empty chair debates?"
We applaud the three council candidates, Blair, Garcia and Van Hooser, who politely declined the TV station's attempt to to possibly rig the election process. Apparently these candidates were wise to the hard lesson learned during by Ms. Van Hooser during the 2007 Mayoral election: If you appear for a taping in front of Boss Godfrey's Channel 17 television cameras, you can expect to find the taped footage mercilously sliced, diced and ginsu-knifed, with heavily edited segments broadcast constantly on the Mayor's Propaganda Station, and in even more far-flung places such as YouTube.
We believe these three candidates demonstrated considerable wisdom in holding out for legitimate debates, conducted by disinterested neutral parties, in venues where the general public can be in attendance. Hopefully all eight candidates for the four open city council seats will be hearing from more trustworthy debate moderators, such as the Weber County League of Women Voters, very soon.
We'll add that we were pleased that Mr. Schwebke at least saw fit to include paraphrased quotes from two of the candidate non attendees, explaining their rationales for declining to attend an event which had the makings of a Godfrey-style political ambush. We were even more delighted to read the emailed comments from Council "B" Seat candidate Bart Blair, which articulately explained some of Mr. Blair's reasons for giving this Channel 17 production the thumbs-down. Unfortunately, Mr. Schwebke's morning story provides only excerpts from Mr. Blair's emailed comment. For the benefit of those readers who'd like to read Mr. Blair's full response to Mr. Schwebke, check out the entry which Mr. Blair made to his campaign blog last evening:
• Channel 17 Debate - By Bart BlairMaybe it's just us... but we'll ask the question anyway. Does it seem to our gentle readers that Mr. Schwebke's story left out Mr. Blair's most important and salient points?
That's it for now, O Gentle Ones.
Don't let the cat get your tongues.
Update 9/25/09 5;15 p.m.: We just received a Boss Godfrey Administration press release through the usual roundabout sources, (the Godfrey administration continues to leave WCF off its press release email list) revealing that the increasingly deranged Boss Godfrey, who's apparently been recently suffering from a particularly exceptional bout of grandiose manic madness, has finally decided to at least temporarily refrain from televising the three "empty chair 'debates,'" wherein candidates Blair, Garcia and Van Hooser refused to "participate" in Godfrey's sham Propaganda Channel #17 dog and pony show:
• Boss Godfrey Press Release: OGDEN CITY MAY NOT SHOW ALL DEBATESWe can only speculate about Godfrey's sudden reversal on this. Perhaps Gary Williams told Godfrey frankly that to air these one-sided segments would invite an ass-kicking in the courts. Perhaps Godfrey's handlers finally got him back on his much-needed medications. Who knows?
So what say our gentle readers about this?
Update 9/26/09 8:30 a.m.: This morning's Standard-Examiner carries a padded out version of the back-pedaling Godfrey Administration press release which we published as an update yesterday evening:
• Candidate no-shows may nean few debates on Ch. 17While it's our opinion that it doesn't offer much beyond what we've already provided above, we'll let our gentle readers be the judges of that.
