Last month, in a lively exchange on this post, school board
member Brian Meshkin agreed to come on "and then there's that..." to refute some of the things I've written about him. After offering Brian three
different dates he settled on our October 5th show. Yesterday I sent
him an email requesting a copy of his CV in advance of the show so Paul and I could learn a little more of his background. We did not consider this to be an
unusual request. We've asked it of other guests over the three years we've been doing this and no one ever had a problem with it.
Until now.
This afternoon I received the following email from Brian:
“In light of your request for my CV yesterday, I spoke with
our corporate legal counsel at Whiteford, Taylor ,
and Preston .
In reviewing the written record on Dennis' blog posts, he
has instructed me to "cancel" my appearance on the show based on what
legal counsel has concluded to be "damaging defamatory attacks coming from
Dennis Lane".
Really?
I seriously question whether this unnamed attorney used the phrase
“damaging defamatory.” As a member of the school board he should at least know that “damaging
defamatory” is redundant. That's not the kind of thing you usually see from an attorney at a large firm like Whiteford Taylor.
I also like how he blames the last minute cancellation on this attorney. This podcast appearance has been scheduled since August 31st. Perhaps his attorney thinks he’s said too much already. There are lots of holes in Brian’s
story about Salugen that Paul and I were hoping to explore with him. I suspect
that this is somewhere that Brian would really prefer not to go.
To be honest, more than a few people told us that Brian
would find some excuse to bag out at the last minute. It’s okay, the show will
go on, only now it will be with an empty seat.
