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The nice thing about elections
is that they always provide some welcome comic relief from the hard realities
being played out on the tragic stage of world events. Just when you thought you
couldn’t stand any more political debates or diatribes for or against the war
in Prior to O.J.’s resurrection,
the only fun we’d had of late was at the expense of Sen. Larry Craig
(R-Ida.). Thanks to some watchful blogger, we finally found out that Craig
had been caught in a Minneapolis airport bathroom stall playing footsie with
some officer of the law who obviously had nothing better to do than sit for
hours on a toilet seat and wait for an anonymous pedal extremity to make
contact with his overly flat foot. Wide-stanced Craig finally
bumped the foot, made suggestive hand signals, and the trap slammed shut.
Fearing the stigma of hypocrisy, high-minded Republicans promptly put the
screws to Craig and told him to leave immediately his stall in the Senate. All this makes you wonder where we’d be
today without the vigilant bloggers who enrich our lives with the juicy tidbits
they turn up and plaster all over the Internet. The nice thing about it is
that no one, especially politicians, is immune from their anonymous pokes and
probes. One day you’re a fine, upstanding candidate. The next day you’re
scum. I was not surprised, therefore,
when I read last week in the Gazette that a blog-reading anonymous source was
moved to delve into some court records from over 10 years ago pertaining to a
case involving Troy Farlow. Farlow is the Democratic candidate running for
the seat in the General Assembly formerly held by Del. Melanie Rapp. I had hoped that Farlow would
develop some credible, issues-oriented opposition to the Davis-Rapp-Pogge
triadic axis of legislative asphyxiation. After reading that he’s a
convicted criminal, however, I just don’t know. If he had been caught in a
bathroom stall at the But when I read that he was a
passenger in a vehicle that ran a red light, smashed into another car and
fled the scene, what am I to think?
Didn’t he know that Virginia law requires a passenger in a car
involved in an accident to report the driver within 24 hours if he doesn’t do
so himself? So what if the driver was
his own father? What kind of a son is it who,
despite the fact that he is trying to reconcile with his father, doesn’t drag
dad down to the lockup post haste and snitch on him? Has he no family values? Four years later Farlow
evidently found his conscience, since he did eventually turn himself in and
confess that his father had been involved in the accident. For this he was
charged with a misdemeanor and fined $250. In addition, Farlow racked up
two speeding tickets, and if that shouldn’t disqualify him from running, I
don’t know what would. On the other hand, Republican state senator Tommy
Norment has a DUI charge on his record, and he seems to be sailing along conveniently
unopposed despite that. Brenda Pogge, Farlow’s
opponent, professed that she was “shocked” when the news of Farlow’s miscue
surfaced. She apparently would have had no qualms about parking her papa in
the poky the minute he got out of line. The blogger who orginated the story claimed
to represent “A Northern Virginia Republican Viewpoint” and urged a vote for
Pogge. The Republican candidate claimed that her campaign had nothing to do
with the anonymous revelation. What I want to know is this: Why
would a Pogge supporter think it beneficial to make public a story involving
a young man in a conflicted relationship with his father? The only
information of possible interest to the present campaign is that a young
Farlow wrestled for four years with a moral issue involving a crime committed
by his father and then did the right thing.
One can only hope that a
colossal backfire emanates from this little tidbit of dated scurrility. Far from being comic relief, it
proves only that Farlow, like the rest of us, is human and that when it comes
to family and family relationships we usually tread very lightly if questions
of ethics and legality arise. In light of this morose expose,
we all might ask ourselves if we would have had the guts to do what Farlow
finally did to satisfy the law.
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lewleadbeater.com Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved email: LWL@lewleadbeater.com |
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