Irvine Tattler pulls a muscle to stay on message

On Christina Shea’s unofficial campaign web site, the Irvine Tattler, publisher Stephen Smith addressed the subject of Irvine lawyer Todd Gallinger’s public comments at last week’s City Council meeting in an oh-so-nuanced fashion.  Gallinger’s letter, which we published here last week, added the word Lobbyist in reference to a memo Shea wrote in November 2005.

Smith is on a mission to prove that Shea is not a lobbyist despite newspaper articles that identify her as such and a memo with her initials in which she writes that the no lobbyist rule was designed to possibly force her to resign from the council.  So while she didn’t say at the exact word, you’d have to be a complete moron not to pick up the reference that Shea indeed considered herself a lobbyist. 

Smith repeatedly points out Shea is not registered as a lobbyist with the state or the city, so I might argue that perhaps she’s breaking the law if she is lobbying for client clandestinely (you know, like Republicans who rail against illegal immigrants but turn the other way when the landscape company shows up to put in their new pool). Smith also cites as proof an online achieved copy of the Orange County Register article identifying Shea as a lobbyist while failing to note that online versions of printed articles sometimes have different headlines that the edition that hit a reader’s doorstep in newsprint.  A valiant effort at SPIN if I ever saw one.

Please read the PDF file for Shea’s November memo and make up your own mind as to how she regarded her own profession.

Smith goes on to provide definitions on “government relations professionals” and “lobbyists” forgetting of course that Shea’s former chief of staff, Anthony Kuo, was also a “government relations professional” who resigned to the anti-lobbying ordinance among other things.  Smith fails to address Shea’s flip flops in 2006 agains the lobbying portion of the ethics ordinance while supporting Measure H this past election cycle. 

I particularly enjoyed Shea’s email to Gallinger sent last month and the middle document in the PDF.  All the venom of a classic Shea voice mail without the shrillness of actually getting a call.

2 Comments

  1. I think that a quote from the book Their Eyes Were Watching God authored by Zora Neale Hurston applies quite well.

    “An envious heart makes a treacherous ear”

    According to my American Literature professor, this quote means that one only listens to what they believe rather than the truth.

    For example, I believe Stephen Smith’s analysis because I know that Shea has been subject to attacks before and it is no surprise to me that she is just being defensive. Also, Dan opposes it because he is a hardcore liberal and despises Shea, which makes sense why he would be predisposed to disagree with Smith.

  2. Nice to see Christina has sent a shill to our site; Stephen doesn’t actually allow any “dialogue” on his site. So one can’t go on to the Tattler to provide context.

    Shea has plenty of mud on her hands too. I tire of people so adept at being a victim. Smith feels Agran played a dirty trick on Shea’s daughter. But not a peep about the second arrest. Who’s fault was that?

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