For a Front-Page Hatchet Job, "Reporting" Mimics Art
at the Democrat and Chronicle
(With Apologies to Monty Python)
[CUE OMINOUS MUSIC]
March 8, 2011 was much like any other winter's day in Rochester and John Auberger, Supervisor of the Town of Greece, was on his way to work as usual when . . . nothing happened!
Scarcely able to believe his eyes, Auberger looked down, but one glance confirmed his suspicions: behind a bush, on the side of the road, there was no severed arm, no dismembered trunk of a man in his late fifties, no head in a bag –- nothing, not a thing!
For John Auberger, this was not to be the start of any trail of events which would not, in no time at all, involve him in neither a tangled knot of suspicion nor any web of lies, which would -- had he been not uninvolved -- surely have led him to no other place than the Central Criminal Court! But it was not to be.
John Auberger reached his office on Long Pond Road, Greece, at 9.05 a.m. -- exactly the same time he usually got in.
ENID: Morning, Supervisor Auberger.Enid, a sharp-eyed, clever young woman, who had been with the office for only four weeks, couldn't help noticing the complete absence of tiny, but telltale blood stains on Mr. Auberger's clothing. Nor did she notice anything strange in Auberger’s behavior that whole morning, nor the next morning, nor at any time before or since the entire period she worked for the Town.
AUBERGER: Morning, Enid.
AUBERGER: Have the new paper clips arrived, Enid?But for the lack of any untoward circumstances for this young secretary to notice and the total non-involvement of Supervisor Auberger in anything illegal, the full weight of the law would have ensured that John Auberger would have ended up like all who challenge the fundamental laws of our society: in an iron coffin with spikes on the inside!
ENID: Yes, they're over there, Mr. Auberger.
AUBERGER: Oh.
Audio of the original Python sketch.
10 comments:
I assumed that the reason this made all the local media (not just the D&C) was that Auberger was involved in an affair with the victim. He's also the guy who made a big deal about having a prayer at town meetings. I don't have a problem with him having an affair, but you have to see how that, coupled with his loud Christianity, makes him a pretty fat media target.
Is every adult relationship "an affair"? Mr. Auberger and the victim were two unmarried adults. They had a relationship which (we now know thanks to that incisive reporting from the D&C) included sex.
What made this a NEWS story? The Greece police acted appropriately. An investigation of Auberger's connection to the victim was made. No reason to connect him to the crime was found.
Its a story only because the D&C wanted to put something embarrassing in the paper about a Republican politician. Particularly this Republican who they tried with all their might to beat during his last election cycle, but could not.
This was quintessential "yellow journalism". Nothing new for our local fish wrapper
No "loud Christianity" - or Judaism or Hinduism -- involved in providing for a prayer at a public meeting.
View it as just laying down a marker against the march of cultural decay.
Oh typical Rottenchester, sees something in nothing as long as it is a republican and see's nothing in something when its a democrat. Please someone tell him that there is still a 29th and let's wait for a convoluted reason why his life no longer involves letting us know when the congress man passed gas.
In the mean time he and the rest of the democrat chroniclers can exploit a situation where two unattached adults can have a relation and sadly one is involved in a terrible murder completely unrelated to the other.
Great post hit the nail on the head!
Of course this is news, its a murder investigation and "...he did not tell police he knew Neusatz because he felt their relationship wasn't germane to the homicide investigation".
Its not up to Auberger to decide what information is important for the police. It was up to the investigators and Chief Todd Baxter to decide what is important to the case. Kudos to Chief Baxter!
As my fire and brimstone grand daddy used to say: be mindful of the company you keep, and be mindful of the influence you hold on others.
“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17)
Howling Mad Murdock
Earl, I see you're still smarting from the well-deserved spanking your blog got from Buffalopundit. Pretending for a week or two that Chris Lee simply dropped off the face of the planet isn't the way to run a good political blog, but I digress from the topic at hand.
There's nothing wrong with Auberger having a relationship with a woman, and I didn't say there was. But, sex outside of marriage is a sin, and someone like him who wants to jam his religion down everyone else's throat is going to have to put up with press exposing his hypocrisy. And, repoman, it's only an "embarrassment" because Auberger presents himself as a bigtime Christian prayer advocate, and his reluctance to tell the PD that he had a relationship is, at minimum, a sin of omission.
Philbrick, having prayers at public meetings is a step backward from the secular nature of our founding and is the very definition of decay. Note that Pittsford, which is run by Republicans, seems to function as well or better than Greece without prayer at meetings.
"and someone like him who wants to jam his religion down everyone else's throat"
Actually Rotten, your statement is a boldfaced lie. From what I hear Auberger attends a Catholic Church.
Prove to everyone here his efforts to force Catholicism on the public, promote it over other religions or simply admit that you are a liar.
Your anti-religion attacks are typical of your ilk. Please stop the hate speech against those who have a different opinion than you. We should all (even non-liberals) be allowed to believe what we want and have our own opinions.
You and your side are hypocrites for claiming you believe the same when it's clear you only want others to agree with you and see things your way.
So very sad.
Auberger is toast, precisely because he made a big deal out of prayers starting out meetings while he was having an affair with a married woman. This is exactly what the Republicans do NOT need. I'm not normally a defender of the D&C, but they were very discreet about local pols' personal lives -- they recognized that scratching the surface would embarrass a LOT of them both Democrats and GOP (you could fill a book with Maggie, Morelle, Robach, Maziarz, Alesi, and the list goes on) -- until homicide got involved.
I have to note my error regarding this story. I did not realize that Ms.Neusatz was married. Nonetheless, I still question the purpose of the story.
Beyond that, however, I truly marvel at the follow-up story which was published Saturday. Clearly Andy Warhol was correct. The idea that Mr. Neusatz would have wanted his unflattering story told in the paper is remarkable and reflects our current societal urge for notoriety. That he participated in making it public is mind-boggling.
The D&C, of course, could not resist an additional opportunity to hit Auberger.
At town prayer meetings Auberger equally invites fundamentalists who crow about Greece being moral and crime free because of Auberger's support of religion. That makes him a complete hypocrite in my book. During his last run Auberger labeled his opponent a "devil" in campaign ads
But God clearly has a sense of the absurd.
Still its not the "crime" -- and adultery is still a crime (why not get it off the books) -- its the coverup and the shifty demeanor that will bring hi8m down just like others.
Why is Auberger given a pass while others with similar behavior are resigning
Jump off this sinking ship before it brings the republicans down,
Post a Comment