There were assassinations and violent debate over gay rights -- that's why Dan White did it?.
That's what it was about? Oh Yeah?
"Back in those tumultuous days . . . politics was almost a pugilistic sport."
The Twinkie Defense -- Dan White shoots the mayor and a supervisor.
From the trial: "White had suffered from 'diminished capacity' and in that state had acted in 'the heat of passion . . .which fogs judgment.'"
What "passion?" See below.
Leading up to the shootings White, an elected supervisor, quit. He was married, his wife was pregnant, and he had been acting out of character for whatever reasons.
Days later he did apply to be reinstated after appeals from firefighters, police and neighborhood residents. Mayor Moscone publicly stated that if White [wanted it] he could have his job back.
But liberal and gay Harvey Milk had a score to settle with this All-American conservative young man -- he was conservative; as one article described it "Back in those tumultuous days . . . politics was almost a pugilistic sport."
"[L]iberal supervisors, led by Milk, had persuaded the mayor to appoint a liberal to the open seat. Believing he had been betrayed, White loaded his .38 revolver on the morning of Nov. 27, 1978, stuffed his pockets with bullets and headed for City Hall." [My emphasis]
The ultra-liberal race baiters like Pelosi say it was about homophobia, but
"Darlene Benton, who was on that jury, takes umbrage at that. 'People think it was about Twinkies and gays,' she said. 'It wasn't. I was born and raised in San Francisco. I've never been against gay people. There may have been a couple of jurors who were,' she said, 'but they never told us they felt that way.'"
"I don't think Twinkies were ever mentioned in testimony," said chief defense attorney Douglas Schmidt, who recalls "HoHos and Ding Dongs," but no Twinkies. In fact, the cream-filled confections were mentioned, but only in passing. Junk food was an insignificant part of the defense. The matter was raised briefly in testimony by Marin psychiatrist Martin Blinder, one of five defense therapists. Today, the entire episode is characterized by Schmidt as "a throwaway witness . . . with a throwaway line.''
The main focus of the defense's case in May 1979 was diminished capacity -- that White had suffered from periodic bouts of depression, amounting to "a major mental illness." That, along with "the machinations of dirty politics at City Hall," White's co-counsel Stephen Scherr said in a recent interview, "drove him 'round the bend."
Think about it. Would you want to call it the "Ho-ho defense" or the "Ding Dong defense" when one of the victims was gay and other was a dirty pol?! Twinkie was the more political correct option, I think!
Does historical reality ever withstand the revised version from (repeated) retelling based on cursory appearance and political expediency? Probably never.