There’s a certain amusement in watching bad guys rip each other to shreds. Though the substance is frightening as hell, your blogger has chuckled as Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio traded insults and sexual innuendo this primary season.
So it is in our own (MD-8) congressional race. As David Trone has thrown over $9-million (soon to be $12 million) at his pursuit of personal glory, he has taken out a couple of full-page Washington Post ads. Kathleen Matthews, for her part, doesn’t like Trone’s reference to her in one of these as a “local media celebrity.” So Matthews has issued a strongly worded retort. As Bill Turque reports:
“You can run as many ads as you would like, but when you do, I’d appreciate it if you clean up your act when referring to me,” Matthews said at the end of an indignant open letter to Trone released by her campaign.
This cracks me up. For one thing, as supposed policy credentials, Matthews has been touting nonstop her experience as a local media celebrity (er, I mean, her record as a reporter on WJLA TV covering one hard-hitting story after another). For another, while Matthews has (rightfully) criticized Trone’s attempt to purchase a congressional seat outright, last week she contributed $500k to her own campaign, making her again, “birds of a feather” with Trone.
Back to Matthews’s letter, she concludes:
I am proud of my work — all while raising three children with my husband of 35 years. . . . That doesn’t make me special, but it certainly doesn’t make me a ‘media celebrity.’ It is a derogatory term and, as a working mom, I find it offensive and uncalled for.
I get Matthew’s tactic of trying to appeal to women. But where, may I ask, did Trone disparage her child-raising or life with her husband? All he did was call her what she is. Except, of course, that he left out the part where Matthews spent a decade as a $1.4 million/year shill for the Marriott Corp, overseeing campaign contributions to the GOP and helping Marriott in its efforts to crush unionized labor. Too bad Trone focused as little attention on Matthews as he did.
©2016 Keith Berner
