COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

On the credenza in my father’s office sat a placard that read, “If you ever see a newspaper editor and people are saying only nice things about him, he will neither be sitting, nor standing, and there will be flowers all around him.”

I was reminded of that saying the other day when, for the second week in a row, Charlie Wilson used some of his precious 12 minutes of radio time to level personal attacks against me in an attempt to discredit the reporting of Inside Vero.

Clearly for now, Wilson has moved his crosshairs from Chamber of Commerce Chairman Bill Penney, and Chamber President Penny Chandler, and is making his best effort to challenge the credibility of our reporting.

Wilson, who always seems to be working some angle to his benefit, if not his enrichment, has been looking into forming a new Chamber of Commerce.  I wonder whom he has in mind to “serve” as the executive director of this new organization.  Will someone please give Charlie Wilson a job!

Wilson, who has probably never been in the running for the trustworthiest, or the most dependable, or the most likely to succeed, has taken to criticizing the reporting of Inside Vero.   Well, the more Wilson objects to our reporting, the closer I suspect we are to revealing the true motivations of those who advocate turning over Vero Electric to Florida Power & Light on terms so unfavorable to the city and on a time table so unfair to the city’s county customers.

Coming from Wilson, who seems to have an increasingly tenuous grasp on reality, the assertion that Inside Vero lacks balanced reporting lands more as a compliment than a criticism.

After all, for years Wilson and the sell-at-any-price crowd have enjoyed virtually unlimited access to the pages of the island tabloid and the local daily.  Essentially, Inside Vero is balancing the reporting on the proposed sale of Vero Electric and on other issues as well.

They say that when you are pointing a finger at someone, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.  With that in mind, let’s consider a few of the ways Wilson has been pointing his finger at Inside Vero.

“The one-sided view that you think is fact and is actually opinion doesn’t make it so.”  (Wilson’s choice of words, not mine.)

“The fact is he often confuses his opinions with facts.”

“Their facts are just not true.”

That last “Wilsonism” is puzzling, if not incomprehensible. Given that “truth” is a synonym for “fact,” how can facts not be true?

Speaking of truth, Wilson claims that as the head of the news department at WTTB his rule was, “It had to be true, and you had to be able to prove it.”

Well, I have some knowledge of the history of WTTB, given that my grandfather founded the station, and I can tell you that what the “Professor of Political Baloney” wants us to think of as the “Wilson Test,” was, in fact, a guiding principle at the station long before Charlie Wilson came to town.

The question in my mind is whether Wilson passed the test.  The next time he takes to the airwaves as the self-appointed spokesman for the way things really are, perhaps Wilson will explain the circumstances that precipitated his departure from WTTB after just two years with the station.

But, let’s get back to Wilson’s current contradictions.  He discounted the commentary of one Inside Vero guest columnist, presumably Bea Gardner, because she was unsuccessful in her recent bid for a seat on the County Commission.  If the failure to win an election disqualifies one from participating public discourse, Wilson would be a mute.  Going back to 1988, Wilson has unsuccessfully run for the Florida House of Representatives, the St. Lucie County Tax Collector’s office, the Indian River County Hospital Board, the Indian River County School Board and the Indian River County Commission.

The only time Wilson won a bid for public office was in 2009, when he was elected to the Vero Beach City Council .  Wilson was removed by court order after just one month after joining the Council, when a judge ruled that Wilson’s interpretation of the city’s residency requirement for Council candidates  strained the bounds of reason.

Clearly afflicted with a Moses complex, Wilson is forever repeating the refrain, “Let my people go,” referring, of course, to the customers of Vero Electric.  Yet, Wilson, Glenn Heran, Dr. Stephen Faherty and others supported, without reservation, the approval of a binding sales contract with FPL that cannot and will not be executed until late 2016, if ever.

In the intervening years, the city’s 22,000 county customers, about whom Wilson claims to be so concerned, will pay some $12 million more per year than they would have if the city and FPL had expedited a partial sale.  The delay makes sense to Wilson because it works for FPL.

The utility giant is more than content to play a waiting game at the expense of the city and its customers.  Rather than settling for 22,000 county customers now, FPL hopes to eventually pick up all 34,000 customers of Vero Electric.  In the process, the utility giant plans to clear the way for its acquisition of more municipal utilities across Florida.

Two weeks ago, Wilson told his handful of listeners “Mark Schumann is a card carrying liberal, who believes big government is good government, and the more employees you have the better.”

When someone who spends as much time as Wilson does belittling public employees accuses me of being a “liberal,” I cannot help but think of that line, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.”  Set next to Wilson, what sentient being would not appear to be a “liberal.” As they say, it’s all relative.  Today, Ronald Reagan would get run out of town on a rail by Libertarian fundamentalists like Wilson.

Some of Wilson’s allusions to misreporting are clearly references to reader comments posted on InsideVero.com.  Well, if a news organization is to be judged by the unsolicited and unedited comments posted by readers, what would that mean for TCPalm.com?  At least on InsideVero.com, commenters are not allowed to hide behind pseudonyms.

Though Wilson denies this, some have speculated he posts on TCPalm.com under the pseudonym, “Wanderer.”  If “Wanderer” is not Wilson, he/she is at least someone who shares Wilson’s mind.

Though Wilson fancies himself as a sophisticated political operative, there is really nothing new about his tactic of diverting the public from the truth by attempting to discredit the press.  Who can forget how Richard Nixon’s disgraced Vice President, Spiro Agnew, tried to divert attention from Watergate by relentlessly attacking the press?

The old slight of hand didn’t work then and it won’t work now.  Despite Wilson’s petty and unsubstantiated attacks, Inside Vero will continue reporting the truth, just as we will continue to offer opinion columns clearly labeled as commentary.