Wednesday, July 19, 2017

A Clarification, Apology and Grace

A morality play in five acts...
  • Preface: Lynn Davenport challenged an incumbent for a seat on the Richardson ISD school board. She lost.
  • Curtain rises...
  • Act I. Self-described "watchdog" Dave Lieber of The Dallas Morning News wrote a column in which he detailed a lot of mean things that happened to Davenport during the campaign. Then he wrote, "Her problems stemmed, she believes, from her opponent's veteran political consultant, C.P. Henry of Dallas."
  • Act II. Jim Schutze of The Dallas Observer rose to the defense of Henry. He wrote, "You can’t take a guy like C.P. Henry, who is a respectable, normal, decent human being and member of the community, and imply broadly in the newspaper that he's a pornographer unless you can prove it dead to rights."
  • Act III. Seven weeks after the original Lieber article, The Dallas Morning News posted a clarification: "It was not the intent of The Dallas Morning News to communicate the meaning that Dallas political consultant C.P. Henry was responsible for, or involved in, such actions."
  • Act IV. Four days later, Davenport posted this apology on her campaign Facebook page, "I do not believe the website porn hacking and ugly tweets during my campaign had anything to do with Kristin Kuhne's political consultant, C.P. Henry. It was never my intent for people to believe he had done these things. I never said he did and I apologize if there was any confusion."
  • Act V. Jim Schutze reposted Davenport's apology on his own Facebook page, on which C.P. Henry commented, with grace, "Everyone take a breath. Lynn has apologized to me, I have accepted. This incident was about impressions that I had done egregious things against her and her campaign. I consider this matter resolved. Move along!"
  • ...and curtain.
  • Afterword. The real villains were never caught. Some still suspect C.P. Henry got away with one, that he played everyone. As in any good movie, there's just enough ambiguity to set up a sequel. Let's all pray it never gets made.

4 comments:

mccalpin said...

So when is Dave Lieber going to apologize for writing his blatantly slanted article that pretended to be journalism?

Bill

Sassy Texan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mark Steger said...

"Sassy Texan," use of a pseudonym is not welcome here. Neither are smears unsupported by any evidence.

Mark Steger said...

Update on Act IV: Lynn Davenport's apology has been deleted from her Facebook page. Readers are left to speculate why.