Bird Droppings Alert

What is it with Stephen Lemons of the New Times?

After defending JD Hayworth's lionization of anti-Semite Henry Ford in his last column, Mr. Lemons decided to use his current column to directly attack JD's challenger for the CD5 Congressional seat, Harry Mitchell.

It's a mostly petty attack, with phrases such as "wishy-washy wusses" and name-calling like "Milquetoast Mitchell" forming the rhetorical foundation of his criticism of Harry's stance on Scottsdale's Prop 401.

I'd go into it in more depth, but I am torn between disgust at the personal nature of his attack (ok, more the utter lameness of it) and pity for him. As in pity for a professional writer such as himself who produces such a weak work product.

As with his last column, though I may disagree with it (strongly!), he has the right to have and express his opinion. Even though he loonily refers to himself as a "beak-bearing scribbler", "annoyed albatross" and "leftist lark." [Sorry, just couldn't resist one bird pun. OK, maybe two, counting the title of this post. :) ]

I would, however, like to point out a fact to Mr. Lemons.

He writes [emphasis mine]"...that Hayworth-challenger Mitchell, without needing to take a stand on the issue, volunteered one on his Web site..."

Maybe this is a minor detail, but this breaking news has been confirmed by the Maricopa County Recorder's Office -

Scottsdale is a part of Arizona's Congressional District 5, and Harry Mitchell is asking the voters of CD5 to elect him to represent us.

Perhaps he doesn't "need" to take a stand on Scottsdale issues, but he damn well *should* if he plans on representing us.

And I think that even when I disagree with the position that he has taken.

Perhaps Mr. Lemons should go back to writing restaurant reviews, and leave the political commentary to people, whether they be amateurs or professionals, who take it seriously.

Just for giggles I checked the Hayworth campaign's latest filing with the FEC, wondering if I'd find an obvious financial link between the two (Lemons and JD).

I didn't.

But I still have to wonder about the source of Mr. Lemon's vitriol.

In other, related news, the aforementioned visit to the FEC's website was illuminating.

From July 1 thru August 23, JD raised $519,000; of that total, better than $212,000 came from PACs and other committees. His August forms are here. [Health Industry PACs still love our JD - check out the reports.]

During the same period, Harry Mitchell raised $156,000, with a little less than $46,000 coming from PACs. Forms are here.

Interesting numbers. Obviously, JD and his handlers take the challenge from Mitchell seriously. My guess is that he has used Congress' summer break to conduct a combo begging/arm-twisting tour of his financial backers.

Not an unexpected development since the purpose of the break is to give the incumbents an opportunity to devote themselves to full-time fundraising.

It looks as if the reports are in for most of the other AZ candidates. I'll leave commenting on those to others - I'm working on another post right now.

Later!