With the exception of strolling over to Schutze's office, it's hard to find anyone in the media willing to criticize Mayor Tom, but Advocate publisher Rick Wamre is quickly rising up Leppert's naughty list, and his blog yesterday on Back Talk might vault him up to the top spot.
While discussing Angela Hunt's latest spat with The News, Wamre says Leppert is behind the "if you're not for us, you're against us" mentality permeating City Hall. He also claims "you're not only wrong, you don't believe in Dallas and you're not being a supportive citizen" in the eyes of the mayor if you disagree with him on issues like the convention center hotel, Trinity Turnpike or anything else he's selling.
Wamre's commentary is a must-read, and his most biting criticism compares the mayor's attitude to a certain Commie hater. C'mon, Rick, tell us what you really think.
In fact, that kind of talk is reminiscent of the McCarthyism red-baiting days of the late 1940s, when merely raising a question about Sen. Joseph McCarthy's methods could easily lead to being accused of being a Communist; as a result, people were afraid to speak up and share their opinion on what turned out to be a wrong-headed, illegitimate effort to punish people who had done nothing wrong. Had more people spoken up about the folly of McCarthy's activities earlier, a lot of innocent people would have been spared.
