Thirsty Thursday, all beer is 2 for 1, and, while you are at it, guess this guy’s Party affiliation
A Tennessee judge resigned last month after making a recording of fantasies so lurid that when the tape fell into the hands of the police and FBI, they thought they were listening to a torture session and believed it might be linked to a murder case.
Ultimately, investigators brought no charges against Circuit Judge John B. Hagler, and police said Wednesday he is not a suspect in any investigation.
But the sensational case has led to allegations of professional retaliation, interdepartmental intrigue and strategic news leaks.
The recording was investigated by authorities more than two years ago, but its existence did not come to light publicly until just a few weeks ago, and details on the contents are only now coming out, at a hearing that began Wednesday on whether police must release the tape.
Guessed yet?
“It sounded like someone being tortured,” Chattanooga police Sgt. Alan Franks testified Wednesday, offering the first details of what is on the tape.
Franks said the recording was investigated in relation to a still-unsolved 1997 murder. He gave no other details on the murder case.
“The content was so shocking. I have been a police officer for 24 years,” Franks said before his testimony was cut off by an objection.
Investigators ultimately concluded the recording consisted only of fantasies.
OK, so it is some weird, sick fantasies.
Hagler said that he had done nothing wrong but that the recording had caused great embarrassment to friends, family and the courts. Hagler, who is 65 and married, has been a circuit judge in Cleveland, Tenn., since 1990 and served three terms as president of the Tennessee Trial Judges Association.
Now, the point here is not to highlight the possibility that the judge is being shafted or anything, it is to highlight how the media has gone out of its way to avoid mentioning that Circuit Judge John B. Hagler is, in fact, a Democrat. He is also the presiding judge of the circuit. He was recently re-elected, as a Democrat, in 2006.
None of the AP stories contained that information. Virtually none of the stories going back into early December, when this started hitting the news, included his Party affiliation. I found a whopping 3 stories that even mentioned his affiliation. If he was a Republican, think that would have been splashed all over every story? Think it would be all over the liberal blogs, and somehow linked to Bush?
More: Newsbusters notices the same thing.
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