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A
Christmas Letter to
Jerry
Kilgore
Santa
Claus knows who's been naughty and nice. And, Jerry,
I'm betting that the eavesdropping thing will get
written down twice.
Dear
Jerry:
Bad
news. This
eavesdropping story, and your reaction to it, is, as
they say in the rag trade, "getting legs".
In other words, it’s moving.
It’s going somewhere.
Not good, Jerry.
For
a while it was just George Whitehurst, at the Danville
Register and Bee.
Well, okay, Bob Gibson, at the Charlottesville
paper took the baton and ran with it, too.
But now look what you’ve done.
You’ve stirred up the great Schapiro at the
Richmond Times-
Dispatch.
Says he in his widely read column this week:
“Attorney
General Jerry Kilgore is falling into the trap that
ensnares pols with ethical problems, perceived and
actual.”
Worst
of all, he says, Jerry, that the halo you’ve been
wearing is ‘dented.’
Which brings me to the real reason for this
letter. I
write to offer a little unsolicited advice to you on
handling this thing.
Getting all red-faced and sputtery and
blaming it on the press, like you did in Richmond
the other day, is not the thing to do.
These folks buy ink by the barrel.
That ought to tell you something.
And
getting snippy with the lieutenant governor?
What’s with that? I
wasn’t there, but folks who were tell me that you
were way over the top, that you looked guilty, that
you came across like you’re hiding something.
Not good, Jerry.
This is not how you want to come across, not
in front of the press.
Not good at all.
And,
for crying out loud, lay off of George Whitehurst.
He’s just a good reporter doing his job. And doing it well.
They think a lot of him down at the Danville
paper. You’re
not getting any mileage out of cheap-shotting him.
Rein your staff in and put a stop to that.
It’s hurting you, not helping.
See, newspaper folks sorta hang together.
First thing you know you’ll have Jeff
Schapiro and the rest of the capitol gang on the
case. You
don’t want that.
Remember
the old Saturday morning cartoons, Jerry?
Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner?
Sooner or later someone would always hand one
or the other a nice big bomb with the fuse already
lit. And of
course it would go off, leaving the holder blackened
and smoldering, with big white eyes.
That’s
what’s happened to you.
Some of your buddies have handed you a bomb
and the fuse is lit.
Seems
some of your staff, including chief counsel Bernie
McNamee, huddled up with Ed Matricardi, at the time
executive director of the Republican Party of
Virginia, with then Speaker of the House Vance
Wilkins, and his aide Claudia Tucker, several
Republican legislators, representative of the
National Republican Party, and other, shall we say
amnesia-prone interested parties, in Wilkins' office
to discuss redistricting.
No
big deal, really. Problem
is the meeting took place the same day your office
was supposed to have alerted the Virginia State
Police on the eavesdropping matter.
Your
spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, says, according to the Danville
paper: “No
representative of the (attorney general’s) office
who attended that meeting on that Monday had any
notion that Ed Matricardi had done what he had
done.”
Looks
to me, Jerry, that right there is where the
‘rut-row’ started.
See, your chief of staff, Anne Petera, had
told Whitehurst that she’d alerted you and McNamee
before the meeting.
I
know. I know
what you’re thinking.
Such a small detail.
And look at all that good stuff you’re
doing. All
that crime-busting stuff.
Looks like everybody would cut you a little
slack on a small detail doesn’t it?
And, good grief, doesn’t everybody know
you’ve got
to keep a political eye on Gilmore, too?
He’s making himself awful handy these days.
Look,
I know you’ve got a full plate, but you’ve got
to make room for this one.
You’ve got to put this eavesdropping thing
behind you. It
is not going to go away until you do.
And there’s only one way to do it.
Take
a deep breath and tell us exactly, precisely, what
you knew and when you knew it.
Don’t quibble.
Don’t qualify.
Don’t stutter.
Just lay it out for us.
And make the folks who work for you do the
same thing.
I
don’t mean to be a buttinski about this, and I’m
not trying to be. I
just knew you’d want my thinking on it.
Best
wishes.
Sincerely.
B.
Day
PS: Hope ol’ Sanny Claus is good to you!
--
December 15, 2003
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