Ignorance is not always bliss

By GEOFF DAVIDIAN

Putnam Pit editor

One really unfortunate thing about people who succeed without being very intelligent is that smarter people use them by treating them as their equal then cast them aside like an old pizza box out back a drug task force hideout.

(For those with low intelligence who are in public office in the 13^th Judicial District of Tennessee, I will write in short words placed between curved red lines like this () at both sides of the part meant for you.)

Look at the way City Attorney T. Michael O’Mara used District Attorney General Bill Gibson to testify in Putnam Pit v. City of Cookeville -- a case about which Gibson had no information whatsoever. (You spoke but you didn’t know anything.)

No one can accuse O’Mara of not being an advocate. The problem is, when personal animosity drives a person, the advocacy stops being primarily for the client and instead looks to what damage can be done to one’s adversary in the name of the client and at the client's expense. (You were used)

O’Mara ran for public office against Gibson but was defeated. If O’Mara were a vain, petty, pompous or vindictive man who thought his part time job made him special, he might want to hurt Gibson by letting the district attorney general sully his own reputation and face professional discipline by testifying against a newspaper that criticizes himself and O’Mara. (He may have used your wish to cover your butt to put you at risk of punishment by other lawyers)

But being smart while wanting vengeance at the same time has its shortcomings, too. (Sometimes being too smart is stupid.)

Once it becomes evident that the smart but vindictive person is out to injure another while pretending to serve the public interest, outside forces come into play to counter any abuses. (Other people are watching this.)

The individual actions, the bills for services, the paper trail, the witnesses, the testimony –- everything -- becomes evidence. (There is proof.)

District Attorney General Bill Gibson (you)were set up because your desire to cover your incompetence made you fall for City of Cookeville’s ploy to let you self-destruct while advancing their cause. (You were set up.)

But O’Mara got paid, while you may take the fall. (You are at risk now.) What you did is on record – your defense of Lewis Coomer, your misstatements about the Eldridge murder; what you may understand when this is over is that ignorant people in offices of trust are wielded by smarter people for their own purposes, and when an ignorant person wants only to retain the influence of office without caring about principle – or understanding the concept – the hammer comes down. (He gottcha for beating him, he got paid a legal fee, and you face scrutiny that will not be defended by the attorney general.)