4.29.05

Letter to the Editor of the San Francisco Sentinel

Pat: I read your note in response to Matt's email to you yesterday. Suffice it to say that I was anything but satisfied by your suggestion that your decision to publish false accusations of such a serious nature without contacting the person accused (by unnamed sources) of making the statements could be justified based on a past unreturned phone call.

This was a smear attack, a truly false one, Pat. Although you were used to disseminate this falsehood, I still hold out the possibility that you were not knowingly so used. A simple apology, as opposed to bitter comments about word counts is in order. By the way, Matt's piece was 170 words, less than half the limit. Why give your readers the impression he exceeded the limit, when his piece wasn't even close?

Pat, you have spent a great deal of time with Matt. The real point here is that you know Matt is a good guy, who is off practicing law, and helping some people who need help. Obviously, some people see him still as a threat, and are working overtime trying to jin up bogus negative stories about him. Ask yourself why they are doing this, Pat, and whether you want to be a part of it.

Whitney Leigh