Excessive exaggeration

I was surprised to the see that the Gazette printed this letter today (scroll to the bottom). I have declined to print it.

I got suspicious when the writer said that Russ Doty's book is 108 pages long, and 54 of those pages are footnotes. I have a copy of the book in front of me. It is 134 pages long. Footnotes are included at the bottom of each page, so I don't know how many pages they cover, but they appear to be the sort of documentation one would expect in a well supported academic paper. The bibliography is nine pages long, including a lot of personal interviews.

Then there's the allegation that Doty lied about saying he worked for the Public Service Commission rather than the Railroad and Public Service Commission. The name changed; Doty's service did not, and I have never heard him misrepresent that. I also have never heard his "supporters" misuse the "assistant attorney general" title, although it is a confusing term and they might well have done so.

We've got about 80 political letters to the editor in the pipeline, and I don't fact check them all. I'm sure the Gazette can't either. But the obvious distortions in this letter jumped out at me.

The letter writer says that "excessive exaggeration is a sign of insecurity." Wonder what he's insecure about.

UPDATE: Now Russ Doty has filed an additional libel complaint, this one alleging seven more libels by Molnar and four in the letter cited above. Most of the new complaints against Molnar concern a letter he wrote to the Outpost last week. I think Doty's gone on a bit over the edge with this one.