It wasn't me!

The other day, I woke up to an inbox full of hate mail about an article I'd written. No, not because I chose a list of writers that didn't include a woman. This was serious business: an article in the Washington Post about the recent controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh's comments on Michael J. Fox and the political ads he filmed.

The article was a straight piece of journalism, not commentary, but it still enraged a handful of readers enough to write to me and complain. Interestingly, the outraged letters were split between those who were fans of Limbaugh, and those who think he's an idiot. That suggests to me that it was in reality a fair and even-handed piece.

Of course, I wasn't the person who actually wrote the article. Believe it or not, there is more than one person in the world named David Montgomery. The David Montgomery in question is a staff reporter for the Washington Post, while I am a book reviewer who spends most of his time changing diapers.

There is also a David Montgomery who is a very distinguished professor of labor history at Yale, and a David Montgomery who is a pianist and conductor. (I used to get the latter's phone calls all the time when we were both at UCSB.) There's even a David Montgomery who snagged my domain name, even though he uses it to no good purpose.

So remember: even though Google is your friend, you still need to put on your thinking cap before sending hate mail. Either that, or next time I'll pull a Goldberg and post the emails on here.

Comments

[Elaine Flinn]

You're still 'the one and only'. :)