Just when you though it could get no worse, the disciples of deception have reached a new low in Virginia politics by smearing Republican Candidate, Tag Greason. Democrat Delegate David Poisson, having learned at the knee of his former boss, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois,brings those skills to his race for re-election including how to deal with political rivals.
Slipping in the polls, fresh out of ideas, and with the political wind in his face due to a president sinking in popularity, anchored to a political party more interested in calling it’s fellow citizens names for demanding their voices be heard, David Poisson with the help of the Democrat party of Virginia is forced to employ the “Chicago Way” southern style in order to distract voters while damaging his opponent.
Tag Greason (http://www.vote4tag.com), the Republican candidate for the Thirty Second District delegate seat, has become the latest victim of the Democrat smear machine. John Geddie from the Loudoun Independent received from an anonymous informant information (don’t you just love these cowards) about a false charge brought against Tag Greason (and several others in Tag’s army unit) in December 1996. The alleged incident in August 1994, never occurred, it was officially investigated, found to be without merit or truth, and formally dismissed without prejudice by United States District Court of Western Louisiana. In other words, Tag Greason and the others involved were victims of false accusations by a former colleague.
Tag Greason, a graduate of West Point and Army Officer, served his country with honor. Tag left the service of our nation without as much as a blemish on his service record. I know Tag Greason and his wife Mary Beth; they are both great people working everyday to better the lives of all within their communities. Tag is an experienced businessman seeking election to the House of Delegates for all the right reasons. Tag, Mary Beth, and their children should not have to contend with the scurrilous allegations of Delegate Poisson’s mindless minions. David Poisson should be ashamed that those working on his behalf would stoop so low.
Tag, meet the Chicago Way.
There is one other thing which bothered me about some of the reactions to this story in the comments section of the LI Website. That was the subtle or not so subtle implications that the Army might have deliberately botched this one because they somehow were not inclined to pursue a case like this — the “good old boys” thing all over again.
You have got to remember that this was the mid-1990’s, not the mid-1970’s. I was not in the military in the 1990’s but I was in a sensitive government position. I can recall that this business of getting serious about sexual harassment in the workplace started up in the early 1980’s, when I was obliged to sit through my first educational film show on the subject — not very pleasant since it was narrated by that all around a**hole named Ed Asner.
However, when it really hit the fan was in the early 1990’s after Clinton came to power. Some big changes all around on virtually every aspect of women in the workplace. I have to bite my tongue to say this, but the Clintonistas actually did some good work in this area — except that they eventually overdid it and started up a climate of distrust and mistrust in the male-female relationships in many offices. Some got a case of the nerves just wondering if they could ask a female co-worker for a date. However, complaints were followed immediately by investigations and repercussions if found to be true, I can assure you of that. That was what I saw at the time. If I could, I would tell you some rather interesting stories. But I can’t.
If guys like me in my job were under that kind of pressure in the mid-1990’s, I do not see how the U.S. Army could have just ignored those types of complaints and thought no one higher up would notice and come down on them, especially in the Clinton era. As I said, I wasn’t in the military itself then, although I dealt with enough officers in my work; but I do suspect the people at Fort Polk took this thing seriously when it was reported (1996) and eventually found out that it was not a viable case. It would have been even tougher on them if the complaint had been bucked upwards because someone thought they weren’t addressing it seriously. Now, how that Lousiana court fit into all this, I do not know. But that’s the way I saw it from a Federal government perspective in the 1990’s.
From the article published, the complaint was brought in Federal District Court, with a Federal Judge. This was not in a military court.
To me, it looks like an over zealous federal prosecutor, who got the case late believing the complainant but not doing adequate investigation, filed it in a hurry, then realized he had no case. The prosecutor took his sweet time trying to figure out how to go forward with a case, any case (disturbing the peace), and could not, so he withdrew the complaint in its entirety. They do not like to do that, does not make them look good. In fact, things like this are very bad for federal prosecutors’ reputations.
M.C. Dean Inc., the owner of the Independent, donated to Greason’s campaign.
http://www.vpap.org/donors/profile/index/134392
Wonder how they feel about Geddie’s editorial ? Might be worth a call from anyone curious about where they stand…
http://www.mcdean.com/contact/contact.htm
So the paper’s owner donated to Greason the Republican but the paper is also Democratic? C’mon you guys.
If you don’t like the story, that’s fine. I’m not going to argue it was some journalistic masterpiece, but let’s not pretend the Independent is some bastion of liberal thought.
I also notice courtesy of that link that the owner donated to Tom Rust. That might explain the much more egregious hit job on Stevens Miller last week that was based on no records, no sources but just some whacked out blog post.
I assume this crowd will also be calling for that story to be removed. Right?
Link the Miller piece, was it an editorial?
Additional paragraphs to the LI story and analysis on Ric’s site:
http://www.hoodathunkblog.com/2009/09/loudoun-independent-puts-some-research-into-greason-story-and-finds-greasons-innocence-supported/
re 56, Cathymac, the Miller Piece in question is filed under “The Dartboard” on the site, which is far more editorial in nature than news.
Miller denied an anonymous blogpost that said he had called other supervisors “bigots” in an executive session to discuss the final candidates to be interviewed for County Administrator, then went on to say he was concerned about diversity in the process and didn’t know whether to go to the NAACP about it or not.
Somehow, the sockpuppets populating both the Greason and Miller stories, along with some prominent Democrats under their own names, feel the stories are commensurate in that they are anonymous smears against candidates which somehow prove a political bent on the part of the paper, yet different in that Miller is obviously the innocent victim of dirty politics while Greason is obviously vile.
IOW, don’t look for any logic.
Look for Miller to put out a piece that the headline “proves” he is a champion of minority issues (and will Neighborhood Listens suddenly activate about it?), thereby wiping out his abandonment of Phyllis Randall to be a VLF posterboy, much as his grandstanding on a 19% paycut wiped out his earlier comments of record on not being paid enough.
Sorry, 10% paycut–prominently featured in a Herndon paper reviewing his Kaine fundraiser.
“So the paper’s owner donated to Greason the Republican but the paper is also Democratic? ”
Newspapers do wander off the reservation, or haven’t you noticed ?
“Miller denied an anonymous blogpost that said he had called other supervisors “bigots””
This is not news, it would be news if the other supervisors denied that report. This type of snide remark is right up Miller’s alley.
Barbara Munsey hits a key point in the first para of #58. The “Dartboard” in the LI is an opinion column.
The problem for the LI, in my opinion, is that they are somewhat space and staff limited. This means they cannot or do not do what a major paper does (or should do): have a political event covered in straight news in a news section and clearly marked opinion pieces in the editorial section. Political events are being covered in the LI by a single item, which means an intermingling of news reporting and opinion. This, of course, can often be confusing to the reader, who, if not aware of the meaning of “Dartboard”, may get upset because they believe they are reading slanted news. The LI needs to find a way to clearly separate the political news from the political commentary and to ensure that the commentary is more clearly advertised as such. I say this, of course, knowing that many of the major papers these days have done us all a disservice by infusing their news articles with opinion and damaging their own journalistic credibility.
Grasping for Straws brought up a good point about the Miller article in the LI. I myself was somewhat confused by that one. My impression from the opening paragraphs was that the LI was going after Miller, precisely because the article opened with a focus on the street demonstration. Then, all of a sudden, we were into the news reporting on the event. After that came some very kind words for Miller such as “smart campaign” and “strong campaign.” So, what was I reading? A news article with a lot of opinion thrown in or political commentary?
In the end the layout and the different foci in the article made me feel like I was reading commentary with a bit of news thrown in. On top of that, the difference between the opening focus on the demonstration and the ending focus on Miller’s campaigning made me feel like I was reading commentary cobbled together by two different people with opposing political preferences. I can see how Grasping assumed that this was a hit piece against Miller — the placement and focus of the opening paragraphs seemed to indicate just that. The LI just has to learn how to work these things better through better separation of news and opinion.
Look, I’m going to get a bit personal here. The publisher of LI is Amy Burns. Her editor is John Geddie Jr. Both of them lost parents much too early — parents who were the chief players in the Loudoun Easterner for many years. After Amy’s mother passed away, the LE was sold and Geddie Sr. moved out, eventually deciding to try a new paper, the Independent. He then passed away tragically. It seems to me that both these kids so revered their parents and the work these parents had done in Loudoun County that they decided to try to carry on that work through providing the rest of us with newspaper coverage of local events. (All of us should have kids who love and respect their parents in that way.) Neither one had to do this thing. Geddie Jr., for instance, is a law school grad, not a journalism school grad. Both of them could have gone on to far different endeavors. Instead, they are doing this thing and, quite obviously, feeling their way along in many respects.
The upshot is that their effort is turning out to be almost all we have in the way of Eastern Loudoun news focus. Other papers have folded. WAGE radio is gone. The Times-Mirror has never done a good job, in my opinion, in covering Eastern Loudoun, even with their Easern Loudoun edition. So, in return for the efforts of Amy and John, I am willing to look past political opinion with which I may not necessarily agree to get the other benefits from having a local paper. And I ask how that is any different from my approach to any other paper, such as the Post or the Times? The LI is their paper, not mine or anyone else’s. If there are those who don’t like the political opinion in the LI, maybe they should get together to start up their own paper. That’s the way our newspaper business has always worked.
Now, having said all that, I do urge Amy and John to do a better separation and demarcation of the news and the political commentary. And I will also say that the article on Tag Greason was a way big mistake from which much can be learned.
Wolverine, I keep focusing on your comment that prompted my post #38, more so now that you’ve reiterated my fear: if this paper is taken out (perhaps through some dirty tricks), what will rush in to fill the eastern Loudoun news vacuum during the eastern Loudoun races?
Given that Miller’s attack ads debuted yesterday, and are entusiasticly being linked about in private emails and twitters from the core group of the usuals, I don’t want to think I have my answer.
Wolv, I appreciate your sentimentality here, but holding editors and owners of newspapers to journalistic standards is not something out of left field. I don’t care if Amy and John were plumbers or indians in their former careers, and I’m sorry they lost their parents, as we all do. It’s great that they want to follow in their footsteps, but desire will get you only so far. Unfortunately (as you said) they are mixing apples and oranges with their commentary and news stories, and pissing off half of their readers constantly. It looks to me like the other side is as confused about their reporting as I am.
I have no desire to start a local paper and have very little opinion either way whether the LI should stick around. I commented that I didn’t like Geddie before the Greason story and he has proven me correct, he is no journalist. Having a local paper is fine and dandy, but one with ethics and standards is preferred. For now I read the LI as a defensive mechanism, like I do the WashPo.
Have you heard the old statistic that people are 10 times more likely to share their dissatisfaction with a product or service than share their satisfaction? People will be hearing about my dissatisfaction.
Well, Cathymac, show me where in this country anybody is successfully holding newspapers to “journalistic standards.” Almost all of journalism has now become advocacy journalism. As a result, the papers are dying out and much of the TV media is losing audience. Where did all the newspaper readers and writers of letters to the editor go? Right here.
Instead of continuing to try to fix the journalism problem, we have sought alternative methods of political expression. And even here there is often very little in the way of checks and balances on what is printed. In short, we are in a journalism and news pickle; and, if the LI can make the necessary adjustments you and I both seek, we have a chance to save at least some element of the other system. I’m willing to give the LI a chance to feel their way through this thing and arrive at the best possible position. I bet you will see some changes for the good after this firestorm. Like Barbara, I cannot imagine living in a place where I have no local paper. Muy bad, senora!!!
This we can agree on Wolv, newspapers are dying and for the very reasons you stated. The LI will die too if they keep it up. Again, I’m not a print media person so if the LI goes the way of the dinosaurs – so be it!
Wolv, read this and try not to spit, cuss or run out the door screaming. The insanity at the LI continues:
http://www.loudouni.com/news/editorial/2009-09-22/editorial-does-it-matter
Hmmm. The LI is feeling the heat. A bit of self-defensive bluster now, but we’ll see what the future direction is.
“spit, cuss, or run out the door screaming”
Shame on you, Cathymac! You’ve been spying on me! I spit, cuss and run out the door screaming whenever an illegal parks in my reserved parking spaces. Don’t need an LI editorial to do that!
It’s pretty ridiculous that you guys think repeating every wacko rumor about Obama is fair game and then you go nuts when someone reports a news about a Republican based on publicly available records. You guys thought that Clinton’s private life should be news so why not this?
Because Clinton was guilty, Tag is not. BTW, Welcome Back Zimzo.
Lying under oath is NOT part of one’s “private life.”
Just took a look at the Not Larry Sabato blog on the Tag Greason thing. Man, there are some weird posts over there. Why, you’d think Tag had been accused of using a cigar as a sex toy during a private pizza party in the Oval Office or something.
You guys all do realize that the LI based its story off of sworn statements and court documents, right? And those types of documents should be public record.
And I’m not sure how anyone can say without doubt that Tag is either guilty or innocent of these charges. They were dismissed without prejudice, meaning this woman can bring the charges back at anytime.
They are strange charges, I’ll admit, but as someone else said on one of these forums they are weirdly detailed to a point of sounding very plausible.
The outrage really is fake on the part of many here. You all cry over fake stories like an Obama birth certificate, but criminal charges aren’t newsworthy.
Grasping: Not sure if you have been reading along but there have been several good rebuttals to the charges, the reporting and your points – specifically hoodathunk’s Ric James’ columns and commentary. It’s pointless to go over it all again when you can easily scroll through the comments and links.
As for charges sounding plausible, I’m sure you are aware of the bevy of charges that have sounded “unique” and detailed that have been completely bogus. Sally brought up the Duke Lacrosse case – which is probably the most prominent. Feel free to research this case all you want.
Grasping, do you have something new to bring to the table, or are you just trying to keep a dieing story alive?
Interesting twist in all this. The Blue Virginia blog is taking the Loudoun Independent to task for an article stating that Stevens Miller called other members of the BOS “bigots.” According to Blue Virginia, the LI is nothing but a hack for the right wing. The Monk caught this and weighed in with the contradictions in the Greason case. John Geddie Jr. appears to be taking it on the head from both directions at the same time.
Wolv,
Guess Jr. forgot why his Dad named the paper “Independent”..
To his credit Tag has moved on he is talking about Jobs, the Economy, Small business and moving our NOVA economy forward in some pretty tough economic times. Let the disciples of deception wallow in this crap. This campaign is about issues.
And like Deeds…Poisson seems to be putting all of his eggs in a basket with a hole in it.
G. Stone — I need your e-mail address. Have Joe send it to me.
On the Loudoun Independent blog, a person claiming to be her husband and posting under at least 5 different names “Dave” “Edward” “David” “David Edward” etc says that he met her after the sister filed the first complaint. He says it was ignored (maybe because the sister filed it and not the so called victim.) He says he was so upset that he helped her file a second complaint. Several times he explodes in foul language, threatening scary stuff. Then later he blogs that “we” were never notified of any of the proceedings, or that the case was dismissed. He seems to have taken ownership of the claim, and pretty controlling. She did not want the article in the paper or her name revealed, but there it is–in a blog.
The only notices would have gone to her–not to him. I find it hard to believe that she did not know, and find it easier to believe that she ignored the notices and has hidden this from her angry and abusive sounding husband, who insisted she go forward with the charge in 1996. He has an explosive temper, and maybe just maybe she got caught in some sort of exaggeration or “story” for sympathy to her sister, that got repeated to her new husband–who got upset about it all and forced her to file a complaint. How else can it be explained that she would not follow the case, not know anything? I find it hard to believe that she was not properly notified by the prosecutor or the Court.
He says she is still waiting for her day in court? Still pretending to her “husband?” But she has not been keeping up with it? She says she does not want this in the paper but he is blogging saying he hopes to slam Tag Greason’s career (who he has never met.) Sounds to me like she married a control freak, who does not honor her wishes, who she cannot be totally honest with…who forced this on her, out of misguided “honor” because she could not admit to him that she was flawed, and may not always tell him the whole truth…and she is afraid of him…
Crazy reading, and sorry for you Tag. And your family…
I saw the back and forth on the LI from the “husband” and his posts were erratic. Even stranger, there is another poster that is claiming to be a conduit for this couple.
It’s very bizarre, and I’m glad Tag is looking past this injustice and focusing on the issues facing LC. I just got a mailer of Tag’s – it looks great and frames the proper issuses.
All this talk of LI!
I wish I was posting to chime in on this mess – I should be back up in a week or two.
The Independent leadership has obviously made a conscious decision to become the tabloid of Loudoun County. Why not just call it the Loudoun Enquirer? The Miller story they ran was ridiculous (and I am no big Miller fan), based on an anymous sources blog post for a blog that gets very little traffic. This story and its subsequent editorial are absolute frigging messes. They slam both sides of the political aisle, but one thing they both have in common is an astonishing lack of thoroughness and a generall gossipy way about them. That is typically more blog fare than newspaper fare, but it fits with a paper in bankruptcy trying to keep its head out of the quicksand. I do guarantee it is driving their web hits up and I haven’t seen that many comments on a local newspaper site in some time. It’s working in driving eyes to the website but I think it wil backfire in the long run, especially with advertisers if the general public opinion of it goes down the crapper.
Speaking of crap, I’ve always been used to seeing bad language on blogs, and heck I’ve used plenty myself. But I’ve never seen a newspaper let people get away with writing shit and fuck in comments, which seem to be favorite words of the “husband”. More indication of the gutter-dredging of Geddie and Burns.
LI, I tend to agree on your Miller story analysis, and I am not fan of Miller either. Loudoun Enquirer is correct.
I just spoke with Mr. Geddie, and asked him who had given him information. He said it was not “local” as in Loudoun… that he had emails and telephone calls on this (that he would not reveal), but in terms of other research had only gotten the court records, spoken to Tag, his campaign manager, his former commander, and the lady (not her husband) He would not tell me if he had discussed this with Poisson or his campaign.
Also I told him the husband was posting under a lot of names, and using very foul and aggressive language. He has not been reading the blog posts, he said he did not realize this.
Then, he proposed he would delete the posts, and I asked him not to do that, because it shows how crazy this couple seems and shows so many inconsistencies that look like lies–so he is going to insert (expletive) for the swear words…
The “husband” seems abusive, and incredibly angry for someone who never met Tag, or bothered to wonder why his wife did not want to file the complaints, or how the case got dismissed without his knowledge of it (did she just not tell him?)
Strange, and it’s too bad that this junk is out there for such a nice guy as Tag is, and for his really wonderful family.
Sally, look on there now – the husband just went ape-shit. I say save the posts in case LI deletes them.
One thing that might narrow this down a bit is if the website at the paper would display IP addresses–NOT EMAILS for all posts.
It would not conclusively prove who anyone is, but if the DesRosier posters are a set of sockpuppets, as some seem to think, a set of IPs in differing locations (maybe some local?) would go a long way to debunking some of the hysteria.
This blog and Hoodathunk had a good result in getting the paper to address some issues.
Maybe the next step is to ask that some of the vitriol and confusion be remedied through a posting of IPs?
Research time. In various posts on the LI website the alleged husband posted under “Edward”, “Dave”, and “David Desrosier”, mostly as “Edward.” One blogger, calling himself Henry Hale, claimed that the alleged victim had called him. Hale said that her name was “Sherry DesRosier”
Major David Edward DesRosier and Sgt Sherry M. DesRosier, husband and wife with two kids. Go to Google and plug in “Sherry DesRosier” On page one you will find a 2005 story and photo which includes this couple from The Honolulu Advertiser. Go to the White Pages and plug in his name. You will get their (apparently) current address and phone number. BTW, Maj. Dave appears to have been a heavyweight weight-lifting titlist in Hawaii.
This appears to be the couple in question. Not evidence, however, that it is they who are doing the posting on the LI blog.
Why don’t we call it what it is: politics as usual. Dirty tricks, anonymous sources, scandalous charges that are unsubstantiated all mark this assault on the electorial process.
Now, while I do NOT agree with Tag Greason on many issues, I will not stand by and see a good man’s name ruined due to rumor and innuendo. The Loudoun Independent should not have published the story, since 1) the case was dismissed, and more importantly,2) he was not convicted of anything. This story was nothing more than an effort to inject some drama and scandal into a fair and clean campaign. To run such a story is unacceptable, if not irresponsible.
The Tag Greason I met is a good businessman, interested in his community, and believes in the family values that he claims to believe in. It is evident by his life. To run a story such as this is shameful.
Shame on you, Loudoun Independent, shame on you.
Hale is a political neanderthal. His two-faced and hypocritical past was called in the thread by our own Blackout…
In combination with Ric James (bitch), and Sally ….they’re really having a difficult time of this (supposed to be a slamdunk) smear job.
An entire news cycle has run since this article and no other media outlet has picked it up. I still want to know who is behind this story?
Did the story come out in print?
Blackout, you completely nailed it in your last post on the LI website. It certainly does appear to me that Major David DesRosier is being “pumped” by someone around here. That was evident from his very first post (22 Sept., 16:22, last sentence in caps) which demonstrated total confusion between the 2007 school board election and the 2009 delegate election — in fact, complete ignorance about the 2009 election. Now he comes out with a few details on the 2007 election but still shows a lack of in-depth knowledge — as in the fact that Greason ran as a write-in candidate and garnered an unusually large number of votes. The capper was his latest claim that Greason has a “checkered past.” This smacks of the DesRosiers being fed a slanted line and not bothering to do their own double check of the facts on the internet. Very surprising since both are educated professionals, he a dietician/nutritionist and she apparently having gotten a degree in psychology or close to getting one in Hawaii. BTW, Major DesRosier was in charge of food and nutrition at Fort Polk in the late 1990’s, which is how he met Sherry apparently.