I Was Wrong

I first met Mike Sabot in early April when I called together a meeting of area liberty lovers to try to begin coordinating the area pro-liberty efforts. In fact, that was the first time I actually met several people, including Donna Driskell and Tom Knighton.

I’ve been on Mike’s email list since about that time, but here’s a dirty little secret: I rarely actually read any of them. I scan the headline and I might skim the email itself, but rarely do I actually read it.

About a month ago, I made the decision – without talking to Tom, my partner on SWGAPolitics.com, about it – to bring Mike in as a contributing author to our site. I did this primarily because he was covering Lee County pretty heavily in his emails, and he was regularly sending me stuff to publish under ‘Publius’ – some of which I actually did. Because I don’t really have the time to get to Lee County Commission meetings myself and he was going out there, I thought it was a good idea to bring him on to write about those issues in particular.

I was wrong.

Over the past couple of weeks, it has become apparent that Mike really is, as others have described him, an ‘angry old man’, and he is letting that get in the way of his reporting of the facts. While I disagree with many of his opinions, honestly because I do so deeply value freedom of speech, I was willing to let that slide so long as he had his facts straight.

It has come to my attention via some discussions with others as well as an article in today’s Albany Herald that apparently, Mike isn’t getting his facts straight any more before reporting. I can understand a slight slip or two, such as my own brain fart yesterday when I claimed that there was no law requiring government meetings in Georgia to be open to the public, and my friend GriftDrift corrected me.

But Mike has recently made an issue of potential alcohol in the new Lee County Library without ever seeing a floor plan, and earlier this week he accused some of the Lee County Commission – Ed Duffy and Rick Muggridge in particular – of illegal and/or unethical acts that had not yet occurred and in fact, DID NOT occur. He has also recently circulated an email claiming that the Lee County Commission was going to raise millage rates ‘over and above’ the amount that homeowners are now having to pay due to the General Assembly making the correct call of disbanding the Homeowners’ Tax Relief Grant during these troubled economic times. In fact, the millage rate stayed the same, while the Lee County School Board millage rate went up slightly.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do my best to be as honest and accurate as possible both in my reporting and in my editorializing, and I WILL NOT stand for one of my contributors to put forth such lies. My own sources say Mike was corrected on at least one occasion prior to him sending these emails and writing these posts, and yet he sent them out anyway. In fact, it is due to these very issues that I personally will not be joining the Lee County Taxpayers Association so long as Mike Sabot is affiliated with it in any way.

That said, Tom and I talked about it this morning and we’ve decided to give Mike one more chance with our organization, and that is IT. The next time he spreads a lie, even if via email, I personally will sever all ties with him, including dismissing him from SWGAPolitics.com

Mike, consider this your last warning:

Shape up, or ship out.