Washington Post Retraction

As most of your are already aware, this Tuesday’s Washington Post contained an appallingly negative story on myself and our political reform initiative effort. The article—which more or less portrayed me as the devil incarnate—described me as a “skinny nerd” “cackling” with “odd glee” as I “blackmailed” the Republican Party leadership with “Machiavellian twists of my knife.” The large photograph in the story implied that I was a hated anti-Latino racist for my campaign to dismantle bilingual education in California, while the photo caption stated that my latest initiative “jeopardized the GOP’s control of Congress.”

But worst of all, the article quoted me as saying that “I can taste the blood of Republicans in my mouth,” and repeated that particular quote in large type above the story’s headline.

Aside the the severe distortions and misunderstandings in the article, that quote itself was completely accurate, but it was what I had told the Post reporter the Democrats were saying to ME about their plans for California’s Republicans. Obviously, there is a gigantic difference between Democrats saying that they “can taste the blood of Republicans” and a Republican saying that same thing.

What is surprising is that I have told that same story, in essentially the same words in at least a dozen or more previous interviews with other reporters, and none of the previous articles contained such a gross mistake.

Fortunately, today’s post carried a complete retraction on that matter. I suppose that late is better than never.

For those of you interested in a much more sober and even-handed account of the current state of the initiative effort, I suggest the issue of ROLL CALL which appeared on the same day, and is available on our web site at: www.fairvote2000.org/9906/060199.html.

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