Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Regret

With Special thanks to Lolis Eric Elie for leading by example.

One compound word has haunted me for the past twenty-four hours: "dumbass."

I used that word to describe the mayor's son Jeremy in last night's post.. That's a strong word and expressed genuine amusement at the manner in which the mayor's son responded to entirely legitimate questions about the mayor's role in the family business.

But using such a strong word so glibly was presumptuous on my part. I owe the mayor's son an apology and intend to use this post for that purpose.

To be sure, Jeremy Nagin did write a "dumbass" letter to the editor that contained one paragraph of almost breathtaking stupidity:
Our company is family-owned, and I am very blessed to have parents who believe in me and have invested a significant amount of our family net worth and taken on major debt to put this company in position for growth.

Remember, the letter was written to convince readers that the mayor would not have been tempted to exert influence on the company's behalf.

However, one dumbass letter does not a dumbass make. It was wrong for me to leap to that conclusion and I deeply regret the error. As a matter of fact, the little that we know of Jeremy Nagin indicates that he is, actually, anything but a dumbass. To have overcome his troubled past and established such a successful business at such a young age is truly remarkable. To have done so with only the benefit of occasional late night advice and working capital from his bespeaks a gifted young man who is certainly no dumbass. I regret having called him one.

Comments:
Thanks for linking to that article. Sheesh -- that was such a long time ago, but I remembered the incident after reading the article.

Jeremy was charged with "grand larceny, criminal impersonation, criminal possession of stolen property and forgery."

So you're convinced Jeremy's reformed, or just more white collar in the art of larceny?

I wonder how *that* late night conversation went after the arrest ... "look, son, there are smarter ways to steal from the public ..."
 
I truly wish he could help me on a day-to-day basis, but that is not possible because he is focused day and night on how to lead our city to a full recovery. Sometimes I catch him late at night for occasional advice and working capital.

My favorite part.
 
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