Yale Cohn of Iowa City, Iowa was shocked — shocked! — when he received an email with the F-word in it, from Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan.According to a story in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, Rod Sullivan sent an email to Cohn that said, "F--- you, 'Donny.'" Cohn is known as Donny in the comments section on the Press-Citizen website.
The dispute arose from their sniping in the comments section of Maria Conz's September 15 blog on the Press-Citizen website.
So Cohn sent Sullivan a personal message, which he admits was "sharp-witted and snarky."
That's when Sullivan staggered Cohn with the F-word email.
"I don't believe (my email) was anywhere as near outrightly offensive" as Sullivan's "guttural tactics," Cohn whinged to the Press-Citizen.
Cohn's message to Sullivan was asking why Sulllivan had set his user profile to "private."
"Are you afraid of accountability? Being on the public record? Being caught in a lie?" Cohn wrote.
Cohn said Sullivan's response was an "abject lack of professionalism."
"(People) should expect more from their elected officials," said Cohn, citing a long-standing policy that elected officials can never, ever, ever say naughty words or have naughty thoughts.
People should expect more from their elected oficials, but people should also not be surprised when elected officials get tired of people calling them liars.
Sullivan later apologized on KCJJ radio for using bad language in the email.
“I wanted to apologize to the community for poor language,” Sullivan said on the radio. He said he wanted to tell the listeners he had “said stuff I shouldn’t have said.”
“It’s a good political move to apologize but I don’t expect it was heartfelt nor would have been done without the media attention,” Cohn told the Press-Citizen.
To which Sullivan called him an f---ing SOB, and flipped him the bird. Or at least he should have. First you whine that he used the F-word and hurted your feewings. Next you claim to have some sort of psychic insight into what goes on in his heart and head, and know whether he was sorry he told you to go have sex with yourself. No wonder the guy doesn't like you.
While we should expect elected officials not to use bad language, keep in mind that 1) they're still human, and 2) you don't need to be so sensitive.
Stop acting like you're horribly offended, like you've never heard this kind of language before. It always cracks me up when people act so horrified and outraged when a politician uses the same language/makes a joke/drinks a beer in public, or otherwise doing the very same thing the Outraged were doing just the other night.
Look, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, politicians are people, and they use the same bad language you do. If you don't like it, tough shit. People talk like this. We elect people to represent us. They're going to talk like this too.
If you didn't like his response, you shouldn't have called him a liar to begin with.
So if you want to be able to exercise your First Amendment rights, feel free. Just don't be so shocked when he exercises his.
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