In support of freedom of speech.....

From my Media Bistro Daily Newsfeed, I found this headline in my inbox:

Post Music Critic Apologizes for 'Crack Addict' Email Remarks to Barry Aide (WaPo)

A Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Washington Post has apologized to D.C. Council member Marion Barry for sending an intemperate email to his spokesman. "It's the stupidest thing I've done in 30 years in journalism," music critic Tim Page said yesterday. "I hope people won't judge me on this one explosion."

The story is, after receiving an unsolicited press release from a Barry aide touting Barry's views on a D.C. area hospital revitalization project, Page apparently could not restrain himself, and let loose with this scathing response:

"Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new -- and typically half-witted -- political grandstanding? I'd be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think of anything the useless Marion Barry could do that would interest me in the slightest, up to and including overdose."

The Post was all over Page. They did their necessary damage control. They issued statements and apologies and doled out punishments – and I'm still asking myself why.

A simple statement to the effect of: Page shouldn't have used his Washington Post email account to send such a diatribe – would have sufficed. But if said press releases were coming in to his Post inbox, then it made sense that he used that one to attempt to "unsubscribe."

But perhaps the most ironic response of all was Barry's "outrage" and his declaration that Page's vitriolic response was akin to "character assassination."

That might actually be true, IF Barry weren't actually a convicted crack addict felon.

This "outrage" from a man that claimed all laws are racist, including the law of gravity.

But Barry's not the only former Mayor our forgiving American public has pardoned. New England's own hometown crook politician, Buddy Cianci, is out of the clink and on the air, doing talk radio.