An open letter to @JohnGeorges2010
Dear Mr. Georges:
First off, let me wish you a Happy Martin Luther King Day. Since you're a Democrat this year, I know the wishes aren't falling on deaf ears. I wouldn't waste my time if you were still a Republican, like when you were trying to court the Louisiana Republican Party prior to the 2007 election for LA-Gov. I hope you don't mind I refer to that election as LA-Gov, like we do on Daily Kos, even though you don't have a lot of respect for us Internet folk.
And that's why I'm writing. During a mayoral forum on 14-January-2010, you said:
There are some dangerous people out there, and they’re here tonight. They’re taping us.
Now, I just know you probably wish you could take that statement back. After all, the people filming you were author Louis Maistros and his wife. They were accompanied by author Poppy Z. Brite, who has a lot more name recognition than you do, and she didn't even have to spend millions like you did in your failed bid for the governor's mansion to get it. I'll be the first to admit that Poppy can get worked up when she's passionate about something, like the closure of St. Henry's Church (her parish), or Da Saints, but but they weren't quite up to hell-raising standards last Thursday night.
Yet you still think of them as dangerous. Your attitude during the forum reminds me of George "Macaca" Allen, former US Senator from Virginia, so Poppy's characterization of you as "paranoid" appears on the money. Personally, I think it's less about paranoia than ego. You just don't like losing, and that's what's happening to you now, just like in the LA-Gov election. (Oops, there I go again, with that lingo from the Internet, sorry.)
About the Internet, by the way: You do know that it's a product of the Cold War, right? It really wasn't invented by Al Gore. Most of the companies actually making money with all those bits-and-bytes are backed by venture capitalists, investors with lots of money. Guys like you.
But you knew most of that already, I'll wager. After all, you've hired some of these "dangerous people" yourself for this campaign. Got to have a website, of course. Maybe you don't let the "dangerous people" in the same room with you, OK, fair enough. The restaurant has a website too, and a pretty good one. Congratulations on that acquisition, I like Crabmeat Ravigote.
Notice that I'm doing my best here to not lapse into the rants and tirades you probably expect when reading blogs, or, in your case, paying a staffer to read blogs like you most likely do for your @JohnGeorges2010 twitter account. I don't want you to think all of us blogger types are foul-mouthed hacks. Some of us can be polite when we want to be. And I say that with all the pride in my Catholic school education I can muster. Still, I take issue with you and this calling a writer, his wife, and another writer "dangerous." They were at the forum to observe democracy at work. OK, they were there with the hope that you or Mr. Couhig would say something outrageous, but that's not dangerous, that's just waiting for the sun to rise in the east.
Still, you're on to something here. There are some dangerous people on the Internet. There are the real Internet criminals of course, but then there are the hackers who are amused by creative stunts. Stunts like that fake-Mitch-the-Mayor website you had your guys put together. Some of us also enjoyed the pro-pot candidate with the same last name as a Republican candidate. Seriously, that's good stuff.
It's also poison.
Yes, you, sir, are poisonous to democratic discourse. The problem is, giving you back what you've been dishing out taints everyone else with the same poison. If someone did want to return the favor, however, they might want to look for one of the "dangerous people." Maybe it would be somebody who went to Catholic school and has a sense of humor. That person might not be a "political operative," as you described those writers videoing you, but maybe they shared office space with a real political operative early on in their consulting career.
This person would know the Internet better than the keystone cops who left their fingerprints all over the fake Landrieu website, that or they just wouldn't care who found out. Either way, a workable strategy would be to hit you in the wallet, because if someone could deal you a financial blow, you'd have less personal funds with which to pull stunts that cost other candidates a lot of money. After all, personal financial troubles can sink a candidate, particularly when being sued by a politically-connected Republican lawyer. This member of the "dangerous people" group might get a domain like this one, then start gathering negative reviews and articles together, updating the site as often as possible. Using some basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques, this new website would come close to the actual site in Google rankings. People trying to decide whether or not to go to this place might opt for the competition. Come to think of it, this probably wouldn't set you back enough financially to have an impact on the campaign, but it would appeal to the Catholic-school sense of humor.
You are wrong for government, Mr. Georges. Your campaign's conduct is old-school, and that's not a compliment. You claim to be a Democrat (this time around), but you're a campaign straight out of the GOP consultant's playbook. New Orleans is a city that deserves something better than a poisonous businessman who will fill City Hall with sycophants who can't run an honest campaign.
Oh, and once again, Happy MLK Day!
Cheers,
YatPundit
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