CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Was it the politics of personal destruction? Or merely an open -- but not widely known -- lifestyle fact spread like a prairie wildfire across the Ohio blogosphere? And the biggest unanswered question of all: Who wrote the "anonymous" comment about Wood County Commissioner Tim Brown's sexual orientation? Who unleashed the Furies? Any half-wit can surmise the motivation: Anonymous intended to destroy Brown's OH-05 candidacy some 24 hours after his initial public comment about running for the vacant NW Ohio congressional district. And anonymous was incredibly successful. The poison pen comment led Brown to say he was a gay man holding elected office as an Ohio Republican, an office he still hopes to keep. Brown won't be running for OH-05.
Jill Miller Zimon has constructed a timeline that traces some of the more significant twists in the episode from its start to the place where it is now currently stalled in the Ohio blogosphere. She says the outing of Tim Brown of Bowling Green shows the powerful influence that blogs can exercise in Ohio politics. Others might be thinking toxic influence. Still others might be thinking his candidacy for Congress and his personal privacy were swallowed whole by the vast storage space now available on computer chips and the explosion of information tossed hither and yon by search engines. She does not speak of the responsibility that comes with yoking influence to search engines --or used to come with influence before the age of search engines.
And she does not attempt to answer the uber question -- who started the rumor? (People are working on that, and Jill at Writes Like She Talks is probably tapping into her political sources, too.) Soon, she and others must address the current status of the Ohio political universe, an edgy universe where anonymous rumor has the gravity of fact. This is not criticism of Jill, nor of any blogger, including yours truly. It is simply meant to note that events unfolded so quickly amid the hyperlinks, so damn quickly amid the hyperlinks, that nobody has yet been able to comprehend their roles or the greater meaning of the episode.
According to JMZ, lawyer Scott Pullins who publishes The Pullins Report first noticed the comment some two hours after it was posted Friday morning. There is no suggestion Pullins is "anonymous" -- he was observant and picked up on the Tim Brown comment first. From there it metastasized. It was a drama, a mystery, a whodunit. Now it needs a super sleuth, a Sherlock Holmes to find who unleashed the hounds.
Showing posts with label Tim Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Brown. Show all posts
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
OH-05 GOP: Commish Tim Brown Drops Bid, Says He's Gay
BOWLING GREEN (TDB) -- Wood County Commissioner Tim Brown publicly acknowledged he is gay and now says he won't be a candidate for the vacant OH-05 congressional seat. He was outed by an anonymous commenter Friday on the Ohio Daily blog. He discussed his sexual orientation in a story published today by the Sentinel-Tribune, the local newspaper in Bowling Green in NW Ohio.
'This is how I was born,' he said. 'This is an orientation.'
Brown realizes that some people will view him as a 'gay commissioner,' instead of a 'commissioner who happens to be gay.'
In some ways, the decision to openly discuss his orientation came as a relief, Brown said, since he has wondered in the past how political adversaries might use it against him.
'I am comfortable with my orientation and have the full support of my family and friends,' he said. "It's not a secret, it is a personal matter to me and I intend to keep it that way.'
Brown emphasized that his sexual orientation in no way diminishes his effectiveness as county commissioner.
'Serving the people of Northwest Ohio is something I cherish and have dedicated the last 20 years to and I hope to continue that service,' he said.
The Daily Bellwether, which placed a call to Brown that was not returned Friday, agrees that sexual orientation should in no way diminish his effectiveness as a public official. And it is more than unfortunate that in Ohio's current political climate a possible congressional campaign had to fold before it had a chance to begin. Brown, of course, is a Republican. And his party has not been seen as exactly welcoming for gays and lesbians.
Meanwhile, there are people telling The Bellwether that Brown made a mistake by abandoning his plans to enter the contest to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor, who died suddenly Sept. 5. They contend he should have run openly as a gay man and forced people to consider, and perhaps confront their prejudices. Even if he lost at the polls, they figure Ohioans would have seen, and learned, that gay Ohioans are not some kind of terrible figures whose sexual orientation makes them unfit for national political office. And that would have been a victory in its own right, perhaps greater than winning a Congressional seat. Bottomline: The bigots won and Brown missed an opportunity to openly combat prejudice and stereotyping with a run for Congress in an extremely conservative corner of the state.
'This is how I was born,' he said. 'This is an orientation.'
Brown realizes that some people will view him as a 'gay commissioner,' instead of a 'commissioner who happens to be gay.'
In some ways, the decision to openly discuss his orientation came as a relief, Brown said, since he has wondered in the past how political adversaries might use it against him.
'I am comfortable with my orientation and have the full support of my family and friends,' he said. "It's not a secret, it is a personal matter to me and I intend to keep it that way.'
Brown emphasized that his sexual orientation in no way diminishes his effectiveness as county commissioner.
'Serving the people of Northwest Ohio is something I cherish and have dedicated the last 20 years to and I hope to continue that service,' he said.
The Daily Bellwether, which placed a call to Brown that was not returned Friday, agrees that sexual orientation should in no way diminish his effectiveness as a public official. And it is more than unfortunate that in Ohio's current political climate a possible congressional campaign had to fold before it had a chance to begin. Brown, of course, is a Republican. And his party has not been seen as exactly welcoming for gays and lesbians.
Meanwhile, there are people telling The Bellwether that Brown made a mistake by abandoning his plans to enter the contest to succeed the late U.S. Rep. Paul Gillmor, who died suddenly Sept. 5. They contend he should have run openly as a gay man and forced people to consider, and perhaps confront their prejudices. Even if he lost at the polls, they figure Ohioans would have seen, and learned, that gay Ohioans are not some kind of terrible figures whose sexual orientation makes them unfit for national political office. And that would have been a victory in its own right, perhaps greater than winning a Congressional seat. Bottomline: The bigots won and Brown missed an opportunity to openly combat prejudice and stereotyping with a run for Congress in an extremely conservative corner of the state.
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