My Dear Sweet Sainted Wife finally got back into town the other day from yet another excursion to visit (and babysit) granddaughters Alexandra and Leah Bo in Columbia, Mo. As usual, I had saved for her the week's Couriers she missed while on the road so she could pick them over for errors (her favorite part) and also catch up on the local news.
She was sitting at the table eating her lintel soup for lunch and reading some of last week's papers the other day when she exclaimed, "Hey, there's a big ol' letter to the editor from Barry Harrison!"
I said, "Yeah, that was in the paper last Wednesday." I then left her to her devices and went back to work, thinking little of it, since I'd read former mayor Barry Harrison's letter detailing his innocence in the current IRS non-payment disaster, a week ago.
Then I got to thinking, maybe I should pick at that letter a little bit, just for fun.
Particularly taking into consideration Barry's parting shot of: "I intend to seek all legal remedies available to me for defamation and slander."
So here goes, with cut and paste words from the letter in italics, and my comments following:
"At no time did I authorize any policy of non-payment of payroll taxes to the IRS."
Glad to know that, Barry. What everybody wants to know is, who did?
"At no time was I aware that the city payroll taxes were not being paid."
Why not? Wasn't that you in the mayor's office when this was happening?
"I never received notification from the IRS, written or verbal, that the city's taxes were not paid."
This one is a real mystery, as anyone who has dealt with the IRS will attest.
"None of us were ever provided with any financial report that listed such a liability."
Why not? What kind of inept financial report does the city produce, anyway, that wouldn't make a $2,000,000 IRS payment shortfall obvious?
Never mind, don't answer that.
"Legislative Audit can still neither confirm or deny the liability."
If this statement is correct, Legislative Auditing appears to be on about the same level as city financial reports for usefulness.
"I understand people being upset by these events."
Marvelous insight, Barry.
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Personally I believe it's very possible that former Mayor Barry Harrison really, truly, honestly had absolutely nothing to do with the IRS payments being withheld, and that he really, truly, honestly knew nothing about it, as he's been saying all along.
Of course, I could be wrong about that.
But what Harrison hasn't said is, "It was my responsibility, on my watch as mayor, and I blew it."
And as mayor the whole time this was going on, Barry Harrison is responsible.
Culpable, probably not. Criminal, probably not.
Bur responsible, yes.
Other people may yet be shown to be culpable, or even criminal, but ...
The responsibility is yours, Barry.
Whether you like it or not.
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Enough Barry-bashing for one column, let's move along to Tony LaRussa bashing.
With all the success the Cardinals have had in the last month and change, LaRussa has been lauded by national sportscasters for his role in the Cardinals' late-season rush through to the World Series.
And a lot of this praise is justified, but I still think Tony overdoes it with the pitchers.
Take Thursday night's game. LaRussa went through five pitchers in two innings and lost the game anyway. Marc Rzepczynski (Scrabble) hadn't allowed as much as a fair ball when Tony took him out, and after that, things started to go downhill.
If it was up to me, I'd leave a guy in who was pitching as well at Zep, at least until somebody got on base (or hit the ball, anyway). But that's just me, I guess, not being able to come to grips with Tony's theory of using as many pitchers as possible.
It must go back to my old Little League managing days when -- if you were lucky enough to have a kid who could throw strikes -- you'd leave him in as long as practical, as long as he was getting folks out.
All this lefty-lefty, righty-righty stuff can overwhelm common sense sometimes.
Anyway, it's been two tight World Series games in a row and I wouldn't expect anything less Saturday night in Texas.
But I bet you've seen the last of the pitching duels for a while.
dtennyson@blythevillecourier.com