LAST WORD ON A TAXING SUBJECT

This was kind of a busy text and telephone day.

If a mere random blogger of no political import, like me, had his smartphone melt, I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the real players.

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that aldermen Havermale and I interacted several times today. As I have said before, he and I were friendly and I have sympathy for what he and his family are feeling now.

A lot of the hurt arises from the fact that the decision-makers took four days to decide – and then communicate the Paul – that the inevitable was, well, inevitable.

If, for whatever reason, the local Republican Party felt compelled to put Paul's name up for nomination, then it should have been done humanely with support and a little intelligence. First of all, they should've found a crisis manager for him. They should've helped him, starting April 10, get his story out in detail and with complete transparency to all the media and all of the Republican alderman, with Paul sitting there until every question was answered, no matter how insulting or insipid. It was unfair to Paul and unfair to the other Republican alderman for anyone on the Council to have been surprised by this.


Several excellent public relations experts have published books on crisis management. There is a playbook for something like this. Because Paul was left on his own, there was nobody to explain the playbook to him.

So, when I criticized Paul's public statement, I now know I was criticizing his team's failure to support him in anything even vaguely resembling a humane way. [More on the humane behavior of the local Republican Party later this week.]

Before this topic becomes utterly dead to me (in about 120 seconds), I wish to add one thing. In my original piece on this topic, late last week, I used the word "dishonest" three times. If you will look at the context, you will see that word describes Paul's press response to the tax situation, his public utterance on the subject. I never suggested his tax returns or any of his contacts with the IRS or fraudulent or dishonest. The topic where that word came up was the topic of intellectual dishonesty.

Last thing I want to do is pile on.  Nothing to see here people.....move along