I have been "tagged" to an article on the Website Impeach Obama Campaign. What? I don’t know these people. Nor am I associated with The Rich Guys Club to which I am also tagged. While I do not support all of President Obama's policies, I do support his re-election. For months now, I have ignored this misrepresentation of my views, but recently I have received several e-mails from friends asking me why I want to impeach our president. I can no longer ignore the fact that my name is being used to support a political position so directly opposite to my own. Hence, this blog.
How did this happen?
On January 8, 2011, as soon as I heard Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had been shot, I went to her offices. As others arrived, they brought the news (incorrect, thank God) that she was dead. When one’s congressional representative is killed, it is easy to assume the shooting was politically motivated. Emotions ran high, but several of us hoped to calm ourselves and others by joining our voices in patriotic and peaceful songs.
New York Times reporter Joe Sharkey approached me, identifying himself as a reporter. After a brief discussion, he read back a few of my thoughts to me to verify the accuracy, and then asked if he could quote me. In his article, At Gifford's Office, Drumming Against Hate, the quote appears correctly: “I’m concerned about the hatred, about the words that you should not use in a democracy. I hope people will realize that hateful words can have consequences.”
Regardless of Loughner's motivation for the shooting, I still stand by that statement. Hate and hate speech threatens our democracy. Open dialogue and compromise are essential to our way of life. A person should be able to speak publicly without fear of his or her words being twisted or misused.
Two days later, on January 11, 2011, Joe Guzzardi posted a guest column at The Floyd Reports. The article, "Will AZ Shooter Kill First Amendment?," uses information that subsequently came out about Jared Lee Loughner's mental state to imply anyone who thought that an attempt on the life of a congresswoman and a judge might be politically motivated was seizing on the opportunity to politicize a tragedy. OK. One man's opinion.
But he then twists my words to make it appear I am threatening people who disagree with me. He wrote:
Since “hateful words” was this summer’s widely used phrase attached to S.B. 1070 advocates, I translate Mills as follows: “If you speak out against illegal immigration and, heaven forbid, support legislation that curbs it, people might get shot.”
Guzzardi, as it turns out, was not in Tucson. He did not overhear my conversation with Joe Sharkey. He quoted Mr. Sharkey's article, but fails to give his source--or URL so his readers might understand the context of my words. Nor did he contact me to verify his "translation" as accurate. Without knowing me or my views on immigration, he represented me as someone who would resort to violence.
Anyone who knows me, my scholarship, or my publications knows this could not be further from the truth.
I contacted Mr. Guzzardi and asked him to retract his characterization of me. He told me he could not. Nor could he remove the "tag" to the Impeach Obama Campaign site. Nor did he apologize, saying simply that he had the right to write whatever he wants to. When I pointed out that all our public discourse should not be governed by what is legal and what is not, that perhaps civility should also play a part, he did not respond.
This is a sort of bullying, is it not? I won't be bullied. This blog is my way of saying so.
And, by the way, Obama 2012.
