Miller Denies Calling Other Supervisors ‘Bigots’

I never would have heard about this if Miller hadn't issued a denial. lol

So, can this go in his greatest hits, along with being afraid of the Confederate statue on the Courthouse lawn, because it is pointing a gun at him?

With addressing the Chamber of Commerce his first month in office by announcing he is a lawyer, and did anyone have any work for him?

By giving an interview shortly thereafter in which he bemoaned that no one had told him before he ran how hard the work was going to be, and how low the pay was?

By violating his oath of office to review land use applications with an open mind in taking action against an application for overdue and voter-approved schools in order to push an unsuitable site for a state delegate's relative to make a commission on for a non-permitted use?

By threatening to bring in the FTC to investigate the Board when BRMC was turned down, after he moved to set aside a lawsuit and review a land use application for that major contributor?

I see some blog posters out there that think it would be good to send him to Richmond via the 86th so that he can get out of Loudoun.

IMO, advancing him to the state level is MUCH worse than keeping him here and just taking our licks till his term is over. He can do a LOT worse for us with a vote in Richmond.

With all the campaigning he's doing instead of his job, was he even involved enough with this process to ensure that sufficient diversity was a part of it, or did he just follow his usual MO and pitch a fit at the last minute for some campaign press?

Please, keep him here! I am his constituent, and I'm not done with him yet!

But there's something wrong with a story that's based on an anonymous blogger claiming to know what happened in a closed-door meeting. It's pure conjecture by somebody who obviously wishes Miller ill. Totally unfair to call this a news story.

I say that as someone who thinks Miller should have been removed from office when he moved to a new neighborhood just to run for higher office only a few months after being elected to the Board. He may be a cad, but fair is fair.

Let me see if I have this straight. The source on this story is an anonymous blogger? REALLY? Since when do we site anonymous bloggers for a stroy. Shame on the Indpendent for even running this story!

Blogs have their sources just like any other media organization, and protect them too.

They are also heavily utilized political tools.

Supervisors aren't supposed to dicuss what happens in closed session, but there is no avenue for sanction if they do.

For all we know, Miller planted the story himself so he could deny it for some chest-beating on the campaign trail.

After all, "racist" is the word of the week politically, since Jimmy Carter spoke on the Wilson issue.

Maybe Miller is just climbing on board the talking point train of the week.

Again, if he is concerned about diversity, did he actually show up, participate, and DO anything about it when he COULD have, or just deny he called anyone a bigot at the eleventh hour for some press?

What, was the rest of the Board supposed to hand him a list he found acceptable after the fact, so he could cast a vote based on....what, exactly?

DID he vote, or just pitch a hissy on something he should have addressed much much earlier in the process?

J. Dobson - just like we shouldn't listen to anonymous tips on the police hotline? or anonymous people blowing the whistle on corporate corruption?

Seems to me that occasionally anonymous information adds occasional value to the discussion.

Not a surprise that Miller denied it though. What else is he going to say? Yes? Don't think so.

Now it's up to those who were behind those doors to also tell the truth. Evidently one of them did to this blogger.

Ms. Munsey, I often agree with you, but "Blogs have their sources just like any other media organization, and protect them too" just makes no sense.

This is NOT a journalist who posted this, it's just somebody who posts their opinions on a web site. If I were to declare here that Bob McDonnald wears women's underwear, that wouldn't make it true, would it? Yet I have as good a source, as much journalistic credibility and as much responsibility as the unidentified conservative blogger.

I agree that bloggers should not be used as sources. However, in this case, I think he or she is right. I heard from someone at the meeting that miller mightily pissed off the other sups with what he said about who they were interviewing...

If other Sups are pissed or want to make an allegation, the Independent should demand that they speak to that on the record. Anything short of that allows for the manipulation of the news media for political gain. This is a hit piece by the Bill Dean Loudoun Independent. Anyone care to guess who Bill Dean has donated to in the Miller-Rust race?

Of course, all of this is obscuring one point: the all-white board is considering an all-white group of candidates to become the latest in an all-white line of county administrators.

So, while I would disagree that that makes those on the Board "bigots," it is a plain and simple fact that Loudoun County doesn't put non-whites in power positions. Ever.

B. Munsey will now claim that I am a racist because I pointed this out. The anti-logic of the Right.

Stevens Miller is such a hypocrite. Where was his huge care for minorities when he was throwing the only African American in Loudoun’s history to run for Supervisors under the bus?

When it was for his own political gain he had no trouble putting his foot on the neck of a minority woman, now we are to believe that he soooo concerned for minorities.

Yeah right Miller, tell that to someone who does not know that you are just a naked political hack.

Miller over Rust? Not in a million years!

Like it or not, blogs are actually considered media now.

In addition, as I said: who would have heard of any of this if Miller hadn't beaten his chest with a denial?

Furthermore, as I also said, they are at the eleventh hour of this process--at the point where they are narrowing to the final candidates to interview. If this is such a huge concern of his, where the hell was he when he could have done something about it? (Not to mention the excellent point about the execrable treatment of Phyllis Randall by Miller--and others)

No, given the fact that Miller's Saint group consultant from the BRMC application (who also apparently felt compelled to protest the Lenah schools that Miller threw away to push a site for a delegate's relative to try for a commission on, even though he does not reside in the school cluster he was commenting on) has put together an outreach program targeting minority voters in Sterling and Herndon, I think the main issue here is that Miller needs some press showing him to at least claim to be a champion of diversity (god forbid he actually ensure it was part of the process when it was ongoing) going into the home stretch.

And wow, now that he's issued a denial of a leak no one knows who made, he's got some press!

Brilliant!

Now, where was he again when it mattered, since it matters so much to him now?

Doesn't Munsey work for this paper? I can't recall ever seeing a paper so flagrant in ignoring any pretense of objectivity. This flimsy article written in the most sensational way possible and then commented upon by another reporter at the paper? I think this is pretty gross.

Not only does McGimsey work for this paper, so does Eugene Delgaudio's daughter and apparently executives of the paper include local Republicans Lori Waters and Jim Plowman. See more here.

(Link deleted)

After reading all of the above, I think anybody would conclude that this is not an objective newspaper, it's a lobbying sheet for a handful of right-wing politicians. ZERO CREDIBILITY. And, if it weren't for the fact that the Commonwealth's Attorney is apparently on your board, I'd say he should investigate whether or not you should be getting media rates at the Post Office. Or perhaps the FBI. Political advertising isn't the same as journalism.

Well gee, isn't the FBI still investigating everybody in Loudoun, including the school board?

Miller campaigned for supervisor on that one.

Now that an anonymous poster has raised the FBI boogeyman here, I'd say the heights of anonymous credibility have been reached.

I am not a reporter, I have a small column about Dulles.

You know, the district Miller supposedly represents while running for higher office as soon as he got the Dulles job?

But Ms. Munsey, you said in this same thread that anonymous posts are credible and considered journalism. Now you have a problem with it? Make up your mind. Or is it just good when the anonymous posts are slamming your political enemies?

I believe I said that like it or not, blogs are now considered media.

I've also said several times that this was not news until Miller denied it, at the eleventh hour of a process he apparently found no fault with publicly until it was time to get some press for his campaign.

I'm slamming the anonymous FBI reference--where ARE those indictments that were definitely coming before the 07 election?

Is the FBI going to finish investigating the school board before they start investigating this newspaper?

Is the FBI going to start investigating Tom Rust?

Keep us credibly posted on those federal investigations, okay, Anon?

lol

What people may not understand is the problem with the story is that it is written as if the information is fact. No credible publication puts out information in such a way that doesn't attempt to find other sources to corroborate what happened at the meeting. It is really strange that a writer of an obscure blog would have privy to this sort of information; not impossible, but improbable. Ms. Munsey seems to be on a crusade to discredit Supervisor Miller, but her partisanship is clouding her judgment. She seems to believe that Mr. Miller got free press from this situation by commenting. Was he not supposed to answer a question that he thought had merit? If he hadn't, it is a good assumption that Ms. Munsey would have said he had something to hide; that's hypocrisy at its best.

Every since M.C. Dean has taken over the operation of this publication, we'll withhold calling it a newspaper for now, the slant towards right wing conservative thinking has been more than obvious. This is not what Ms. Miller had in mind all of the years she took in building up the Easterner, which later became the Independent. Amy Burns is a good and honest person, and I refuse to believe that she is in agreement with the way her mother's dream has been hijacked, but hijacked it was been by Lori Waters, Jim Plowman, and the Deans.

Even though blogs have become a part of mainstream journalism, that doesn't mean that everyone that publishes one is a mainstream journalist. My blog, THSquare Talks(www.thsquaretalks.com), talks about political and current events, but there is no delusion on my part that I am a mainstream journalist at this point in its publication. That's the same thing that is true about Crystal Clear Conservative, and, what is also true is that that blog is written with such a slant, any legitimate news organization would verify the source of information coming from this anonymous person. However, the Independent chose to write an article based on flimsy data from someone who won't even identify themselves. This is suspect in the main and leads to the type of allegations that one has today.

Yes, I do agree with one of the posters that it is unusual that Mr. Miller would take such a position, given his approach to the last BOS campaign and how he and Andrea McGimsey, Jeanne West, Susan Buckley, and Kelly Burk abandoned Phyllis Randall in her bid to change the homogeneous hue of the BOS. However, the issue is that the Independent is abandoning the unbiased viewpoint of true journalism for the right to exist, and that has become more and more apparent as the publication continues to put it product out to the public. A look at the letters they choose to publish in their editorial section tells the story. Not one of the letters I've written have been published, nor many other progressive viewpoints. The called for political writers, and I volunteered to offer samplings of my work. Never heard nothing, but Bill Dean and the Ogdens write their screeds with impunity, so the proof is in the pudding.

Thanks Mr. Hale. The difference between anonymous biased blathering and responsible journalism is something this newspaper (and I'm using that term loosely) simply doesn't understand.

Ms. Munsey, what you said in defending/promoting this garbage was "Blogs have their sources just like any other media organization, and protect them too."

Mr. Hale, I'm glad to see you put on the record verification from an ardent Democrat that Miller, and others in the local party, have actions of record that speak a lot more strongly about treatment of a minority candidate than any grandstanding on Miller's part over the end of a process he apparently did little to change.

The time for him to have made this an issue is last spring, when the county was voting to hire a consultant and begin to take public input on a replacement for Mr. Bowers.

Nothing prevented Mr. Miller from attempting to guide the process to include better minority outreach, yet I don't recall anything in the press by him them, nor do I recall seeing him at the public input session.

Please don't call me a hypocrite if I haven't done what you have postulated I might do.

If the first news I see is a denial, how can I conclude he has something to hide if he were to have failed to deny something I never heard of, that was not reported in any fact-based way? That's quite a leap, especially when my position on the man is that he has done nothing viable--he has nothing to hide nor to advertise.

This article does not claim that the report is true--it claims that Mr. Miller is denying an unsubstantiated blog report.

As I said, it wasn't news until he made it so, and for the fourth or fifth time, if he cares so much, WHERE was he when he could have made a difference on it?

Oh, and anon, any answers on what the FBI will be doing with this?

Anyone who has been reading Letters to Editors, since the BOS campaign, is well aware of my position on how Mrs. Randall was treated during the campaign. However, let me stray somewhat about my opinion of the job Stevens Miller has done on the BOS. He has been a strong advocate of many issues that I have supported since his election, and I feel that he will make an excellent delegate in Richmond. Of all the supervisors, he has surprised me the most, because he does stand up and fight his convictions, and those convictions have turned out to be a lot in-line with mine.

Where Ms. Munsey continues to contradict herself is by saying the Independent wrote an unsubstantiated claim by an anonymous blogger, but she then blames Mr. Miller for acting, or rather not taking action, on this more than likely bogus claim. You cannot sit on the fence and jump on either side when it's convenient for you. That is the fallacy of the article to begin with. It doesn't corroborate any of the claims whatsoever, so the reader doesn't know what has or hasn't happened up to now. Does Ms. Munsey know that Mr. Miller didn't bring up the diversity issue, prior to, as she puts it, the "11th hour"? Of course she doesn't, but her obvious vitriol towards Mr. Miller clouds her judgment. As such, she misses the point that many of the posters are making. That being, the Independent published a partisan screed without any sign of journalistic integrity and made it look as if it is fact.

Mr. Hale, I would venture that it only "looks like" fact to those with an eye out on Miller's behalf. Is how it "looks" more important than how it is--that it did not state it as fact, but reported that Miller denied it was fact?

If "looks like" is the primary concern, then there is as little substance to Miller's campaign as can be expected based on his record.

Are you a resident of Dulles? Some here are not too thrilled with him over the killing of overdue schools, which provided the golden opportunity to attempt to accelerate HS6, thereby placing every community in his district at risk for disruptive boundary changes while seats are projected to be empty in Leesburg.

His commissioner deliberately scotched a quorum on a public hearing she is paid with our tax dollars to attend because she was unable to garner sufficient votes to remove roads that those killed schools died over.

That he did all of this for cronies, contributors and possible state allies is as execrable as his broken promise to a fellow candidate.

His positions on some issues affecting the district he'd like to be elected in now are as spotty as his performance in the district he apparently ran for as nothing more than a stepping stone.

If you choose to feel this is mere partisan screed, feel free, but I have not belonged to any party for several years now.

I am a Dulles resident who follows the issues in my district, and this man is little more than an opportunistic cutout. My opinion, with my name on it like yours.

Attack me as you like, but I'm not running for anything, contrary to some anonymous opinions.

Miller IS, abandoning in the process the district he swore to represent. While I don't like much that he has done (and NOT done) here, I firmly feel he would be far more damaging at the state level.

There are no contradictions in my position on him. Examine your own premise: if the blog is such a nothing, why is he a hero for publicizing it by denying it? It can't be nothing and something big at the same time.

Unless of course, my premise is correct that this is home stretch grandstanding, and logic need not apply.

Ms. Munsey, for someone who claims NOT to be an employee of the Independent, you sure to monitor this website very closely. Something like 20 posts today. Also, you are paid for the column you write for this publication, no?

Four equals twenty?

Well, I guess that explains the lack of logic! lol

This one makes five, and no, I did not "claim NOT to be an employee", I claimed not to be a reporter. I'm not.

So I guess there goes the specious argument that "reporters" are commenting on other reporters' work. (That is only okay if reporters are reporting that it has been reported by a source that must remain anonymous that the FBI is investigating...well, everybody)

Along with the bogus claims that McGimsey works for this paper, as well as Lori Waters and Jim Plowman directing its operations.

Of course, that must be true, or the FBI wouldn't be investigating it, right?

Twist and shout, friend.

You need to learn to count. You've posted on this topic alone five times today, and you've posted on other topics as well.

As for your hairsplitting ("I did not 'claim NOT to be an employee', I claimed not to be a reporter"), the fact is you work for this company. Right? Is it so hard for you to just admit the truth? Your job title is irrelevant, and you know it.

Any particular reason you keep asking everybody about the FBI investigating everything? It doesn't mean anything as far as I can tell.

One comment on another thread , plus this one, brings me up to seven total, six here. I'd say "twenty" is far more challenged, but that's probably just splitting hairs.

You tell me about the FBI; it was "Anonymous" that played that card.

I'm still waiting for the last two times Miller had a federal investigation going on on behalf of his political agenda.

Next?

Sorry Mr. Hale, but this isn't trolling, and I have no intention of giving Mr. Miller a break. His record is what it is, and it remains no recommendation for greater responsibility.

I would say the hyporcrisy between this non-story's treatment by some local Dems and the Greason non-story is stunning, but unfortunately it seems par for the Loudoun course.

A lot of the posters? A handful of anonymous sock-puppets don't make a real crowd, and never have. The sock puppets here, and elsewhere, seem desperate to ignore that the only story here is a manufactured one, perhaps by Miller through his timely public denial of an anonymous blogpost, in order to get some manufactured press.

Is the purpose to provide a "poor abused Democrat" foil for the smear that's being played on Greason with much more serious allegations?

This is in no way commensurate, as it is nothing more than Miller posturing, as usual.

And please forgive me, but comments on any article are not restricted, either publicly or by ANY private citizen, to "the credibility of the manner in which this story was published", regardless of how much party operatives wish to declare it so. If that is really your position, then I'm sure you find the Greason article much more offensive--or, no, it appears from your comments there you do not.

Miller has not been credible on issues IN THIS DISTRICT, which hardly recommend him for a larger responsibility.

Continuing to attack my opinion (and now me), tossing in unrelated (except by political party) names, and now attempting to tell me what opinions are acceptable to hold in relation to this are no more than a distraction from the FACT that this was not a story--even in this paper--until Miller denied it.

That is my OPINION of this story, and like it or not, I have a right to it, and even I have a right to speak it.

Do you plan to be as tenacious in attempting to get to the bottom of the Greason anonymous smear, or are you satisfied with piling on over there to accuse him?

So it would seem.

Gee, how......partisan.

Barbara Munsey is endlessly fascinating, and a shameless liar. She is an employee of this newspaper but can't seem to just say the words.

I wonder why?

Dear Todd: see my post of two days ago, responding to an anon who stated that I am a reporter. I replied that I am NOT a reporter, but that I have a small column.

I do.

How is that shamelessly lying?

If I denied that I had any connection with the paper at all, that WOULD be a lie.

But I didn't.

Do you have a point to make about the issue in the article (or lack thereof), or just more personal attack on my opinions?

Excuse me, Mr. Hale, but nowhere in the Greason story does it identify the accuser, nor who brought the information to the paper.

The accuser chose to remain anonymous in print.

Like the blogger.

What Mr. Greason is being reviled for, years after charges were dismissed, is far more serious than Miller doing a he said/I didn't say on an anonymous blogpost, when he (and any other who may have leaked it) are not supposed to discuss what transpires in executive session.

My position remains that Miller is just grabbing some headlines (heard anything about Neighborhood Listens lately? I have the suspicion we're all about to), and that his performance as an elected official thus far is no resume for jumping directly to Richmond.

I'm sorry, but as a resident of Dulles district, I have excellent standing to discuss my supervisor, particularly since his stellar sense of timing led him to run for a better job the minute he got this one.

You are entitled to your opinion Mr. Hale. I disagree that your opinion entitles you to grant standing to anyone else before they are allowed to have or express one.