Friday, September 11, 2009

Treacy Steps Up on Gray Matter

With apologies to Chamillionaire, Monroe Gray is no longer "riding dirty," thanks to his payment of three year's worth of auto registration fees. The big kudos in this story, though, go to Marion County Democratic Party Chairman, Ed Treacy, who said the following regarding Gray's failure to register in the first place:

"I think once someone has had a problem in the past, it's incumbent on that person to probably make sure they have all the, the i's dotted and the t's crossed. (Gray) ought to be more introspective about in terms of not subjecting himself to further criticism."
Many people will say, "Are you crazy? This is nothing!" Ladies and gents, the hardest thing anyone can do is criticize a member of one's own party when that person has powerful friends. I thought this was major because it's the first public criticism of an elected Democrat by a party leader in Marion County that I can recall. (Like I said in my prior post, Mayor Peterson didn't do it). Also, politics is a field of closed door fire but public smoke. Might one hope that in the places where cameras and microphones don't go, somebody was getting their hindquarters chewed?

Does it go as far as I would have liked in terms of outcome? No. But you can't say it's not a pretty clear warning shot across the bow. Does it mention Doris Minton-McNeil? No. But you can't say it's not directed at her by implication. There is a simple rule in politics - when you know people are inspecting your house, keep it in order. All Treacy did was restate the rule for many people who should have already been living by it. But, in so doing, he said a lot.


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1 comment:

Paul K. Ogden said...

I actually agree with this. If the situation were reversed Tom John would have just ignored it. Treacy should get some credit for speaking out against people of his own party, even if it wasn't a particularly strong statemetn.