I can't believe I didn't catch this until now, but bear with me....
Last semester, I published a piece in the Spectator about the
Democrats for Bloomberg issue within the College Democrats. Specifically, I was very critical of Seth Flaxman (their then Membership Director and current President) and his slogan that, as College Democrats, "We should stop ‘just talking’ about politics and focus on getting good Democrats elected. Less talk and more activism.”
In response, Seth Flaxman accused me of twisting his quote out of context. As he
wrote:
I thought the quote of mine he used in his editorial was clear: “We need to do more than just talk about issues and work on getting good Democrats elected.”
Notice anything wrong?
Well, if you didn't, the quote he refers to is not the same as the quote I used in my piece. My quote I took from
an earlier spec article about the Mayoral race. The quote used by Flaxman does not show up in that article, or in mine. Basically, he changed his own message in his response, perhaps hoping that nobody would realize. There is a difference between "stop 'just talking'" and "do more than just talking," and that's an awfully big typo to happen just by mistake. He ignores his latter part of the quote, "the less talk" part, entirely too.
I could, of course, discuss the myriad of other points in Flaxman's response that were lacking, and if comments ask for it perhaps I will. But I think its just another case in which Democrats twist what they actually said after they are challenged on it. Where's the accountability again? Certainly, not with the College Democrats.
Although I would certainly like to meet Mr. Flaxman. Too bad I didn't see his response until now.
