Gibson Grandstands Again

In today's North County Times is a report that Jim Gibson is up to his old tricks of doing anything to get his name in the newspaper. Apparently Gibson feels neglected unless he is mentioned in the newspaper each time there is a board meeting.

Today Gibson is asking to designate a day at VUSD as Carrie Prejean day. If it's political Gibson is drawn to it as a moth to a flame.

Carrie Prejean as you may have heard was named Miss California USA. During the questioning period one of the judges asked her what she thought about the currently hot button topic of marriage. She politely answered she thought it should only be between a man and a woman only which is less than sensitive to a lot of good friends of mine. However, the openly gay judge instead of letting it go made the situation much worse by being very rude to her. In later interviews with the media, he was even more rude.

The judge is a nobody who thinks he is helping the cause of gay marriage. He is not. Instead he stirred up a hornet's nest and made Carrie Prejean a cause celebre for the religious right. She has been on a large number of national news shows.

Gibson decided to try to grab a piece of her new found celebrity. He is always out for Gibson before anything else. Publicity for himself might turn out to an opportunity to run for higher office which is what he has demonstrated his is prime motivation for being a school board member. He has run for higher office over and over again. He has repeatedly used his position on our board as an stepping stone in two unsuccessful attempts to get a seat on the Oceanside City Council and once in an attempt to get into the State Assembly.

Jim the old publicity hound that he is saw Carrie Prejean as a great opportunity and tried to grab a ride on her new found celebrity.

Here are a couple of lines from the article:

"Gibson, a conservative Christian, has a history of bringing hot topics before the board, including Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage in California.

He said the proclamation idea wasn't political, although he thought other people could take it that way."

Yeah, right Jim. Everything you do is political. Too bad you did not work half as hard to get our new third high school built or we would have had it built as scheduled in 2005. Your obstructionism kept us from getting the level cheap Kawano strawberry hill site in 2002 which would have allowed the dual magnet high school to open in fall of 2005. However, you did manage to get your name in the newspaper hundreds of times with quotes after every school board meeting and by championing non-educational hot button topics--Prop 8 for instance.

Here is a link to the article and the VUSD blog battle comments following:

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/04/28/news/coastal/vista/z8945c0fa046e84a0882575a500784227.txt

BLOG BATTLE HERO of the DAY

There were a great many PRO blogs today. Thanks to all who blogged in. Special thanks to the PRO bloggers for their great blogs. I loved them all. Runner up for best blog goes to Pluto for the following:

Pluto April 29, 2009 9:33AM PST
In response to Freitag: Here's an article from yesterday's papers.

Roger Neal, a spokesman for the Miss California pageant, says beauty queen Carrie Prejean lied when she said state pageant officials told her to apologize to the gay community and refrain from discussing religion on the talk show circuit.

"She chose to stand up in church and in front of the media and say something that was a lie," Neal said Monday. "No one ever said, 'You must apologize to the gay community,' and no one ever said, 'Don't talk about your faith or your religion.' Those two things never came out of anybody's mouth."

Neal said, as an adviser for Miss California in the competition, he told Prejean to emphasize she didn't mean to offend anyone.

Special Runner Up to VistaRes for the following:


VistaRes April 29, 2009 9:31AM PST
Hilarious, typical.. Gibson pandering to his 'constituents' again on non-essential issues. The one Gibson gem I really liked - 'Let's name a middle school after Chesty Puller!' (Chesty Puller by the way was a Marine officer in WWII - a brave, though some ex-Marines would say a violently psychotic officer who was accused of squandering the lives of his fellow Marines). Nevertheless - 'He was a Marine!' . Why, oh why, does Gibson keep going off on these tangents? Answer: the man just can't stay on topic.


However today's winner and the top award for BLOG BATTLE HERO of the DAY goes to: "hatched"

Hatched gets the award for the following blog that makes the point that I missed but should have been obvious to me. Gibson only wants to honor Prejean because of her answer. A different answer and Gibson would never have mentioned her. Where was Gibson with his request to honor her when she first became Miss California USA and before she answered the "question" in the national pageant?

If he really wanted to honor her achievement he would have requested this day for her long before the controversy. Of course then there is would have been no chance at jumping on a publicity train generated by the controversial question.

hatched April 29, 2009 9:57AM PST
Would Gibson want to honor her accomplishments if she had answered the other way? That's the only real question, and the answer is no. He wants to honor her for being successful and agreeing with him. That is wrong and he should be ashamed. She's beautiful, smart, honest, and honorable. I don't agree with her politics, but I have respect for her opinions and her right to voice them.