Delegate John Welch on VB Sheriff: "I wish he was man enough"

Republican Sheriff Paul Lanteigne is a dedicated, hard-working public official who gets nothing but the beat down by Delegate John Welch.  The straw that broke the camel's back, however, was finally delivered when Welch, desperate to save his imploding campaign, used photos of Lanteigne without the Sheriff's permission, in an attempt to dupe voters into thinking he had the Sheriff's endorsement.  He did not.

"I don't think he's been a strong supporter of the public safety community," Lanteigne said of Welch. "I would have thought, based on our conversation... he would have taken that to the next step and not used the photos."  Come on, Sheriff Lanteigne, we're talking about "Doc" Welch here!  Just look at Welch's response back to Lanteigne.  "I wish he was man enough to call me."  (Nicely handled, "Doc."  Insult the guy's manhood.)

Sheriff Lanteigne contends that his support for Welch started souring in 2004 over a budget dispute.  "The deputies have no idea what we're doing up here," Welch said.  (Again, nicely handled, "Doc".  This time insult the guy's intelligence.)

So we have here the events of 2004 (budget dispute) and the events of today (unauthorized use of photos).  Who's smelling a lot more to this story here?  Who else thinks as I do that there's a lot more going on between Lanteigne and Welch?  What are the events occurring between 2004 and 2007 that makes a Republican like Sheriff Lanteigne essentially work to deep six the already struggling campaign of another Republican?


For that answer, let's turn to Welch's mentor, Bill O'Reilly, who used the tragic deaths of two teen girls in Virginia Beach to make cheap political points.  He did so despite the fact that Ray Tranchant, one of the girls' fathers, urged people not to treat the tragedy like "a political football."

"We're going to make Virginia Beach the flash point in stopping the immigration madness", proclaimed O'Reilly.  He swept into town playing the only card he knows how to play with the one issue, immigration, on which he is maniacally fixated. O'Reilly is very adept at playing that fear card, and he uses it virulently in hopes of improving his ratings, which like Welch's campaign, are tanking.  It was obscenely irresponsible and only added insult to injury in a community still reeling from the tragic loss of two young lives at the hands of a drunk driver.

"It's like flying an airplane over a roaring fire, and instead of dropping the chemicals that put it out, you drop an inflammable, like gasoline," Mayor Oberndorf said of O'Reilly's tactics. "I understand that's his right. I can't react as irresponsibly as he has."

So where was Welch when O'Reilly zeroed in on Mayor Oberndorf and the City of Virginia Beach for attack, blaming them exclusively for the girls' deaths?  Where was Welch when O'Reillly said such things as, "[T]he police chief is an arrogant incompetent. Alright, now, if you elect these people, that's what you're gonna get. Dead girls."  Where was Welch when O'Reilly urged a boycott of Virginia Beach at the beginning of the tourist season?  Where else?  Posing for photo ops with his hero, Bill O'Reilly, of course. 

I wish John Welch was man enough to have stepped up for the truth, extending leadership at a time of crisis, never resorting to the tactics of fear and division that appeal to our prejudices and aid our disenfranchisement.  For had Welch been indeed that man, he wouldn't be minus the endorsement of Sheriff Paul Lanteigne today.

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