Peter Schorsch needs a dictionary

Bloggers are still picking dumb fights in order
to get people to come to their sites? Lame.

Yawn. I'd really thought that blogger wars were, like, sooo 2008, but apparently Peter Schorsch is determined to hang on to this trend:

As Herman Cain campaign implodes, thoughts on Deborah Cox-Roush, Sarah Rumpf and others who have backed him

The post isn't really about Cain so much as it is Schorsch's chance to attack me six ways to Sunday. He spends about two-thirds of the post blathering on about me. Seriously? What in the world did I do that was interesting enough to warrant a top headline post?

I mean, seriously? In a week in which Barney Frank announces he's not running for reelection, Herman Cain's campaign makes national news for all the wrong reasons, the euro is nearing meltdown, and redistricting squabbles are causing waves across the state, attacking another local blogger is how Schorsch wants to spend his time? Seriously?!

First of all, Schorsch committed a serious breach of ethics by disclosing several of my comments that we agreed were "off the record." We had a phone conversation a few days ago and then some back-and-forth direct messages on Twitter yesterday. I've saved the screencaps and not only did Schorsch affirm that my previous comments were off the record, those direct messages were as well. 

I have never in my life had someone violate an agreement to keep a conversation "off the record," especially when it was in writing. To not only have that confidence violated, but for Schorsch to go so far as to directly quote my allegedly off-the-record words is ridiculous.

Since Schorsch apparently doesn't understand what "off the record" means, here's a definition:

off-the-rec·ord

  [awf-thuh-rek-erd, of-]  adjective

1. not for publication; not to be quoted; a candidate's off-the-record remarks to reporters.

2. confidential: off-the-record information

It's not a complicated idea: if we agree a conversation is off the record, you shouldn't print it in your blog! I suppose I could play this same game and disclose off the record DMs and emails that Schorsch has sent me. I can think of a few that might ruffle some feathers and upset some very specific people. Luckily for Schorsch, I understand what "off the record" means and have no intention of following him down his ethically challenged path.

Moreover, yesterday when I was sending DMs to Schorsch, I was getting frustrated with the limitations of trying to explain something complicated in 140 character messages and tried to call Schorsch. He sent my call to voice mail, I left a message, and he sent a final DM: "Will call you later..." I never heard a peep from him until his post today.

.@SaintPetersblog I guess I'm the idiot for actually believing you would call back before posting. Hey, you got your hits in. Enjoy!Tue Nov 29 17:53:36 via webSarah Rumpf
rumpfshaker

As to the substance of Schorsch's post, he seems to be suffering under the kind of delusion well-illustrated by the Indian fable of The Blind Men and the Elephant, in which blind men are asked to examine and describe an elephant but give wildly different reports due to their limited perspectives. The man who feels the elephant's tail describes the animal as a rope, the man who feels its ear says an elephant is like a fan, and so on.

Except in this case, Schorsch isn't blind, attempts have been made to show him what the entire elephant looks like, but he insists that his original limited view is the only correct perspective. To him, the elephant can never be anything more than the "rope" that he saw when he had encountered only the tail.

To clarify, Schorsch has cherry-picked some of my posts, completely ignored others (e.g., he wrongly claims I have not discussed the polls in the Florida Senate race), and formed a very distorted picture in which he somehow places the responsibility of every aspect of the Herman Cain campaign on my shoulders and attacks my overall blogging endeavour.

Before Presidency 5, I had written favorable posts about Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich, and showed up that week legitimately undecided. Herman Cain earned his straw poll victory fair and square, and Schorsch's attempts to diminish that week only revealed his own bitter cynicism and lack of understanding of how actual conservatives think.

I had a front row seat for a short, very interesting period of the Cain campaign, and I wrote about it. Apparently, to Schorsch that means that I was then obligated to spending every waking moment of my day commenting on every little thing that happened with the campaign and defending every word and action by Cain. Unlike Schorsch, this blog is not my main job or source of income, and I never have time to write about all the stories I want to cover.

I have admittedly dialed down my enthusiasm for Cain (based on foreign policy and campaign strategy issues, not those allegations that, at least as of now, are not what I would call reliable) and have been taking a "wait-and-see" approach to see if the campaign could get through it. I've been working on a post with my overview of the presidential primary, but events have been happening faster than I could react, I wanted to take the time to talk to the good people I knew on the campaign before I posted anything publicly, and forgive me, I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my family instead of ranting about politics on the internet.

No matter to Schorsch. He has repeatedly demanded that I defend Cain, or publicly renounce him, or revoke an endorsement I never actually gave. Again, we're back to Schorsch needing a dictionary - he starts his post saying that he's not going to "sneer" at anyone who backed Cain, but then spends the majority of the post slamming me, someone who was not an official part of the campaign, never worked for the candidate or drew a penny of salary, had no role and no title, not even as a volunteer? I'm somehow more suspect because I wasn't getting a paycheck? Huh?

Now, I'm just a poor public school kid but the English I learned in school seems to have different meanings for words than the English that Schorsch uses. That sure sounded like he was "sneering" at me when he says my credibility is damaged because I wrote favorably a few weeks ago about a candidate who is having trouble now. Again, seriously?!

OK, ranting done. If you know me personally and want to hear more, contact me. I'll post some more on the actual race later this week, but otherwise, I wash my hands of Peter Schorsch after this:

To Peter:

You violated an agreement to keep our communications off the record. That's not acceptable.

You avoided my phone call and refused to call me back. You didn't want to hear my side of the story, you were too anxious to take your shots and sneer at someone else's misfortune.

Regardless of what's happened lately, Cain is a smart, kind, charismatic candidate and if you had half the grace and class that man has in his pinky finger, you would be doing something else with your time than attacking a fellow blogger.

You say you "enjoyed our back-and-forth conversations" but then violate confidences (in that same sentence you yourself characterize the conversations as "private"), attack my ethics and my business. Enjoyable conversations don't happen when there is no trust, and you have proven this week that you are not someone who is worthy of my trust.

I don't know what is motivating you, don't know why you are so fixated on me lately, but you've burned a bridge. Hope it was worth it.

Good luck in life. I hope you find peace for whatever it is that's driving you to act this way.

- Sarah