A Matter of Interpretation

This is my second post on the pledge of allegiance flap where Speaker Denny dared to hand a level to Betsy Russell, who is in charge of the press corp requesting that if members of the press choose not to recite the pledge than to wait to come on to the floor of the House until after the pledge is recited. Kevin Richert takes issue with my original post on this being a matter of respect:

No, not exactly. In a Statehouse without strangers — lawmakers, reporters, lobbyists and staff pretty much know everybody on sight — Denney could have easily pulled aside the offending (and unnamed) reporters. But that wasn’t quite kerfuffly enough, I suppose. Better to paint every reporter with the brush of subversion.

Actually, Denny didn’t paint anyone with a brush of subversion. He has not released the letter he sent to Betsy Russell as head of the State House Press Corps. He gave it to her to communicate with all the reporters in the Press Corps.

This is a quite common practice in the business world. When a minor infaction occurs, it’s not at all uncommon for a memo to be sent out in place of an unpleasant confrontation experience. You also avoid singling out reporters for the Speaker’s wrath, such as it was.

The ironic thing is that so many journalists are all up in knots because Speaker Denny sent a letter encouraging journalists who didn’t want to say the pledge to wait to come on the floor until after it had been said. He didn’t threaten to expel them from the chamber. He didn’t compel patriotism, as some journalists have stated. He sent a request in an understated, discreet way and a journalist who didn’t like the request decided to make it public. And Mr. Richert suggests that the Speaker was trying to paint all the reporters as subversive with what amounted to an internal memo?

The amazing leaps some people will take to make a point.