Progressives have been loud and clear in talking about
Donald Trump’s competence and character—fair enough: competence and character
count for a lot, if not everything, in assessing a political person. But, when I analyzed the competence (proven)
and the character (dubious) of Craig Fenske, a candidate for Supervisor of the Doña Ana Soil and
Water Conservation District, in a widely circulated email, local Progressives refused
to allow the same standard to be applied to one of their own. Some responded with name-calling or trumped-up
charges. Las Cruces City Councilor Gil
Sorg replied that I am a “jerk,” and Dael Goodman alleged that I had sent her
“abusive emails.” Others will have to
decide whether I am a jerk, but I can say that one email nine months earlier telling
Dael “no” to future emails from her is neither plural nor abusive.
So I know
whereof State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn speaks when he writes a guest
column “Despite political affiliation, human decency must prevail” (Bulletin, June 23). I agree that we must be honest and decent in
communications and not dehumanize others, whatever the differences of
opinion. But I could not square his
preaching with his practice. His column
reminded me of an Ambrose Bierce definition of a Christian: “One who believes
that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual
needs of his neighbor.”
Dunn opens by
mentioning the shooting of a Republican congressman at a baseball practice,
continues by detailing some local episodes of shots fired through windshields
and slashed tires, and reflects on their possible cause in “the overheated and
dishonest rhetoric coming from the extreme progressive left toward conservative
public officials.” With no relevant
facts, just paranoic imaginings, Dunn jumps to a political accusation; he
ignores the fact that vehicle vandalism without political motive is a common
occurrence in the area. (With no
relevant facts, just a perverse imagination, I might counter that the
overheated and dishonest rhetoric coming from the extreme conservative right
might have prompted an extreme conservative to such damage in order to blame those
on the “extreme progressive left.”) Dunn’s
leap to a one-sided conclusion strikes me as neither honest nor decent. And, as New Mexicans know, it was one of Arizona
congresswoman Gabby Gifford’s extreme conservative constituents who shot,
wounded, and mentally maimed her for life—nothing so minor as windshield damage
or a slashed tire.
Balance alone—would
it not be honest and decent?—might have suggested to Dunn that extremists exist
at both ends of the political spectrum. Honesty
and decency might have suggested that extremists should not be taken as representative
of either side of the political spectrum; “extremists” are the new straw men of
political rhetoric. But only the “some
who don’t respect the need for truthful debate and instead choose to target
conservatives” get a mention—the “some” being those who are not “conservatives.” Yet Dunn has no idea about “truthful debate”
since, before it begins, he colors those who disagree with him as “extremists”
and claims that “vitriol coming from the extremists toward conservatives” is
affecting his decision to run for office.
Although he gives no evidence of extremist vitriol toward other
conservatives or him, his words are evidence of his vitriol toward
non-conservative opponents.
Dunn complains
that Senator Heinrich, by endorsing Dunn’s rival, endorsed what he represents
as his rival’s unsavory views on the standoff in Oregon at a federal wildlife
refuge. Dunn claims that his opponent
characterized “a group of peacefully protesting ranchers in Oregon” as
“Taliban-style terrorists and advocated the federal government taking deadly
force against them with no due process.”
Dunn’s complaint is neither honest nor decent.
First, Dunn
grossly misrepresents the group of ranchers and likely just as grossly
misrepresents his rival’s words. The
group of ranchers in Oregon was not a group of Oregon ranchers or even of local
residents. They were not “peacefully
protesting”; they were armed; they evicted employees from their wildlife refuge
offices at gunpoint; they threated armed resistance if federal officers tried to
arrest them; and one of them was shot and killed when he attempted to draw his
weapon on federal officers. By radically
misrepresenting the facts about this episode of a violent, vigilante effort to
seize public lands reveals values unworthy of a public servant and antithetical
to the public interest.
Second, given
Dunn’s misrepresentation of the physical facts of the episode, his claim that
his rival urged deadly force and the denial of due process is suspect as
improbable. Dunn does not quote his rival’s
words. So we do not know what his
rival’s words or views on this episode are, but they are not likely what Dunn
claims them to be. Dunn substitutes his
words instead—a ploy which does not suggest honesty or decency.
Finally, Dunn
drags Heinrich into his discussion in order to smear the Senator by association
and an unsupported allegation that the senator, whom Dunn never quotes, uses
“overheated rhetoric.” Odds are, Heinrich
had many reasons to endorse Dunn’s rival, and endorsing him does not mean
endorsing every one of his views, even if, as is very doubtful, he knew them
all and one or two were what Dunn says that they are. Dunn’s gratuitous smear is more of what is
neither honest nor decent about his rhetoric.
In this context,
Dunn’s concluding “promise to stand up for honest debate” and his challenge to
voters to support candidates and officials who “stick to the truth, [and] have
honest discussions” demonstrate the hypocrisy of a candidate pseudo-heroically
pretending to honesty and decency. Dunn
may know what they are, but he does not act as if he does by practicing what he
preaches. We do not need another partisan
hypocrite of poisoned rhetoric like him in public office. One and done is enough of Dunn.
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