Here is the letter to the editor that appeared in todays SHT, along with the rebuttal I just sent to the paper a few minutes ago.
Bush DCF appointee a mistake
The rush to appoint the head of a troubled child welfare agency without checking the man's extremist background is another example of bumbling Jeb Bush's poor judgment. The appointee to the Department of Children and Families, Jerry Regier, co-authored an essay supporting physical abuse of children, asserting that leaving bruises or welts does not constitute abuse.
This appointee should be dismissed immediately before further harm is done to Florida's children. Jeb Bush is not the leader Florida needs. Let's show him the exit in November.
This is too much.
Rachel Ferrell
Bradenton
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Letters Editor, The Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Re: "Bush DCF appointee a mistake"
A letter printed in your 8/20/2002 edition, "Bush DCF appointee a mistake", was either a thinly veiled attack against Florida governor Jeb Bush and newly-appointed DCF chief, Jerry Regier, or, at best, a textbook example of the saying, " One person tells a falsehood and a hundred repeat it as true". This letter simply parrots false statements made in a Miami Herald story which, if anyone bothered to check the facts, reveals itself to be patently incorrect.
The report that Jerry Regier "co-authored an essay supporting physical abuse of children" is a lie. If this is so, how could the Oklahoma Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) name Jerry Regier as the 2001 Administrator of the Year? As Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel wrote in his 8/20/2002 column, "Regier 'crisis' falters when facts known", this disinformation was simply found on the Internet somewhere and subsequently published as "truth" without allowing any time for Mr. Regier to respond. The Miami Herald did, however, manage to gather a verbal attack from Mr. Regier's political foes in Oklahoma. Mr. Regier himself has publicly issued a statement refuting these false claims. The actual record shows that he did not co-author the writing in question, nor did he exercise any editorial control over it's contents. In addition, he long ago disavowed any relationship with the publishing organization.
The title of another column refuting these unwarranted falsehoods regarding Mr. Regier, authored by Cheryl Wetzstein in the 8/20/200 Washington Times, succinctly sums up this whole situation in it's title, "Attacks on Regier seen as 'politics'". One quote in this article hits the nail squarely on the head: "This is just the politics of personal destruction, moving from Washington to Tallahassee".
"This is too much". Yes, indeed.
Joe Brower
