The World According to Oatney

Keeping up the fight for justice

In recent days, a few folks have asked me privately why I keep "obsessing" over the Tyler Harber Affair. I do not think I am obsessing, as the charges Mr. Harber is making are serious and it isn't my fault that the press in East Tennessee is guilty of an abject failure to do their job (the lone exception to this seems to be Gene Patterson) leaving it to the poor bloggers to do their job for them.

Just because the mainstream media collectively decides to ignore something does not mean that there is no story worth telling. Merely because the large press agents decide not to cover something does not mean the situation doesn't exist. Failure of an event to appear as the lead headline at six o'clock does not mean that the event did not take place.

So it is the case with Harbergate. The Ragsdale machine and their allies in certain of the local media outlets are doing everything in their power to make this story go away. If I'm Mike Ragsdale and I have an ambition to be the Governor of Tennessee in 2010, I do not run from a media blitz on this issue or a full scale local, State, and federal investigation. On the contrary, I would embrace an investigation and I would say both to the press and to the police "here, take whatever you want, learn everything you need to know, we'll give you whatever you need." Innocent men do that because such a posture exonerates them, and if Mike Ragsdale did no wrong and he were to take such an attitude, he would come off smelling like a rose politically. What's more, if Mike Ragsdale opened himself up to a complete investigation where we all could see what was going on and all of these charges were proven totally baseless, I would be the first to congratulate Ragsdale and apologize for the trouble.

Mike Ragsdale isn't doing that, however, he is just waiting for what he hopes will be a blowover. Well, I've got news: Mike Ragsdale may have powerful friends, he may have the local media on his side, and he even has a mouth on talk radio to do his talking for him, but there are a few of us who will not let this story go away until Mike Ragsdale lets it all hang out and we can see the proof of his involvement or lack thereof for ourselves. We will keep fighting until the "powerful people" pay attention to this and the people of Knox County and all of East Tennessee know that their government is acting with justice.

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 6:43 AM