A question of credibility Sept. 13, 2012

  

I escalated the war in curious way, and I’m sure she’ll find a way to strike back.

After her comments about the neighboring mayor during our staff meeting, I ran out and made a number of phone calls.

I deliberately let her over hear my conversation with the boss over my concerns about her remarks at the meeting.

“You can’t have someone saying someone’s corrupt without proving it,” I told the boss, who seemed to have not heard those remarks.

My phone calls produced two sources that gave me conflicting information about who was out to get the neighboring mayor, and who would be feeding this kind of information to her.

The incident made me see her as naïve.

She was listening to union workers spreading rumors about a mayor who refused to give them a raise, and they apparently were willing to say anything on the off chance she might print it.

I decided to counter this through my column and hoped nobody would take it as a stealth attack on her credibility, pointing out the fact that the unions were spreading gossip in order to undermine the mayor. This was indeed questioning her credibility, and I knew she would get it.

I also pointed out in the column speculation about the superintendent of schools in one of her towns leaving.

The boss emailed me about it, and I told her it might just be a rumor and forwarded a copy to her, telling the boss she might have better sources that I have (although my source was close to center of matter.)

None of this would be lost on her as she will see it as a passive aggressive attack, which she will see as me trying to destroy her credibility with the boss and the owner.

I tried to sound reasonable in my emails to the boss, logically laying out the situation and why we should not be in bed with the unions. Each of these I also sent to her in order to make sure she didn’t think I was going behind her back – although I fully expected steam to come out of her ears with each forwarded email.

Last week, when I did as much, I got a snide remark via email from her after I sent her a draft of the column I intended to submit.

“I corrected the factual and grammatical errors,” she replied.

I expect to get something a lot nastier this weeks, maybe even open warfare again.

 


email to Al Sullivan

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