On April 3, an AP reporter wrote Brewer spokesperson Matt Benson advising him that a Tucson tabloid had written a story about the firing of Joey Strickland, Arizona’s Veteran Services Department. In the article, dated April 4, the reporter wrote that a comment made by former Representative Terri Proud “drew rebukes from female veterans’ advocates” and regurgitated the story forwarded by Brewer’s team:
“Director Joey Strickland was forced to resign Tuesday after the governor’s office learned he had hired a former Arizona state representative he had previously been ordered not to employ.”
The reporter did at least mention that Strickland denied that he was told to never hire Proud. However, they did not mention Terrie Gent, the Secretary of the Cochise County Democrat Party, who threatened the aforementioned rebukes if the Governor did not act against Proud.
The reporter did though indict Proud for “being opposed the state’s redistricting commission,” but made little mention to Strickland’s career, which by all accounts was stellar. Strickland retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1994, and had won the respect of members of both parties and Arizona’s veterans.
On April 2, after learning that Joey Strickland was the collateral damage in her attack on Proud, Gent sent an email to Senator Steve Farley and others “calling on you to do all you can to restore Joey to his position.” She continued, “Joey is revered by veterans and every cranny of the state because he literally works 24/7 with them and they know what he always puts the needs of veterans first.”
When he received a copy of Gent’s plea, Matt Benson the Governor’s spokesperson wrote in an email to Scott Smith, time stamped April 3, 2013, 7:55 a.m., “Unbelievable. It may be worth reaching out to Terrie Gent before she does any more damage.”
On April 4 Bob Christie of the Associated Press filed a formal records request with the Governor’s office asking for any written communications regarding the resignation of Strickland. No record of any AP stories, which contain any reference to Gent, or Strickland’s concerns about Gent can be found. Yet, that information appears to have been in the Governor’s staff’s possession and available for release to a records request on April 2 and thereafter.
Presumably, columnist for the Phoenix News Times, Stephen Lemons would have received a copy of this Gent’s exchange and the threat from Gent forwarded to the Governor’s Office, in his records request of April 10.
However, in his op-ed piece on April 11, the rabid-partisan, attacks Brewer, and Proud, defends Strickland, and completely ignores Gent and Strickland’s claims about Gent.
Brewer had caved to the threats of a political hack, who was complaining about a political hack, and now she had to call on other political hacks to save the guy she had destroyed.
But, according to sources at the Capitol, that is how it was with Gent. Gent threw her hefty political weight around the halls of the Legislature to bully political hacks on both sides of the aisle, and according to sources, Brewer must have known that Gent your make your life miserable if she decided to.
How else could Brewer save face and prevent a fragging, but to remove the guy who put her in Gent’s crosshairs? After all, Brewer and her staff have a reputation for erratic and reactionary behavior as evidenced by last week’s call for a Special Session of the Legislature when its leaders weren’t moving fast enough to give her crony capitalist buddies and the democrats what they so desperately wanted.
For partisans like Lemons, an opportunity to take out two birds; Brewer and Proud, with one stone; his article entitled Brewer Flips Off 600,000 Military Vets in Arizona by Axing Colonel Joey Strickland, was a dream come true. Lemons would have every reason in the world to ignore the role the Secretary of the Cochise County Democrat Party, played in the politics of personal destruction.
Gent was trying to build her own narrative that “someone” was forcing Strickland to hire Proud. But Gent’s very existence didn’t fit the narratives put forth by Brewer’s crew, or the partisan media.
So despite Strickland’s note, from which Lemons cited, he accepted Brewer’s staff’s refusal to “get into the details” of why the Governor wanted Proud out. Lemons also accepted Brewer’s spin; “Brewer’s flack, Matt Benson, told me. “But any doubts we had were validated by her highly questionable public remarks . . . regarding women in the military.”
Lemons wrote, “On the surface, it sounds as if Brewer’s little bitch, Smith, had a hissy fit and ended up ousting a respected public servant who’s done more for this state than Smith has in his career as a professional sycophant,” and he does nothing more to expose what was beneath the surface.
Lemons takes his cheap shots while forwarding the narrative; “Needless to say, Smith never served in the military. The guy’s been a desk jockey all his life….. Similarly, Jan “We Have Did” Brewer is an idiot, and she knows she’s an idiot….. Whether it was spouting misinformation regarding Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission or misquoting Susan B. Anthony on abortion, Proud had a particularly bad case of heel-in-mouth disease, a condition she confirmed as untreatable during a recent interview with the University of Arizona’s student news service, which asked her about women in combat.”
(As a side note; Proud’s concern about the IRC commissioners was affirmed by courtroom testimony in lawsuits filed against the IRC.)
Other than the truth he told about Strickland’s solid career, Lemons’ story offered nothing in the form of real information. However, his assessment of Brewer is shared by many republicans betrayed by her this week: “The pettiness, cheap cruelty, and sheer stupidity of the Brewer administration reminds me of the character of young punk King Joffrey Baratheon from the HBO series Game of Thrones.”
Tomorrow’s edition: Brewer administration’s strange bedfellows
Related articles:
Part I: Brewer “betrayal” consistent pattern
Part II: Brewer builds new narrative to appease democrat activists