Classical Values :: Blogger to undergo counseling?

June 21, 2007

Blogger to undergo counseling?

Yes.

HARRISBURG - A top aide to State Sen. Lisa M. Boscola will keep his job despite making profanity-laced remarks on a blog about a congressman and his potential Democratic challenger, the senator's office said yesterday.

Bernie Kieklak, chief of staff to the Democratic senator from Northampton County, will remain on her staff if he undergoes counseling and meets "the higher standards that people deserve to expect from individuals in public service," according to a statement.

I try not to be a foul-mouthed blogger, but if an employer didn't like what I wrote, I'd rather be fired than made to undergo counseling. Something about that undermines the inherent human dignity in recognizing simply that someone said whatever it was he said.

We all say things we regret, and it is entirely foreseeable that what a blogger working for a state senator says will likely be scrutinized in ways that another blogger's words won't be. What happened here was that the blogger made profane and indecent remarks about a Republican congressman as well as his challenger.

Kieklak was suspended without pay last week for making vulgar comments online about U.S. Rep. Charles W. Dent, a second-term Republican, and Siobhan "Sam" Bennett, who leads an Allentown nonprofit and is running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Dent in the 2008 election. The comments, posted in early June, came in response to blog entries on the merits of the candidates.

Kieklak submitted his resignation last week, but Boscola did not accept it.

He had initially defended his writings as those of a private citizen exercising his First Amendment rights. But he apologized to Dent, Bennett, Boscola and her constituents in a separate statement yesterday, saying his comments were "vicious and obnoxious."

"I know many, many people are angry with me for what I said and their anger is justified," Kieklak said. "It was my mistake [and] I will regret it for the rest of my life."

So why not leave it at that? He admitted responsibility, which means he at least claimed his words as his own.

Counseling implies that he really wasn't responsible for what he said, because implicit in such counseling is the idea that his words are a symptom of disease.

I've used the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome" and I now see that people are using the phrase "Clinton Derangement Syndrome." In politics, such things are to be expected. What I would not want is to see someone being ordered into treatment for BDS or CDS. It degrades blogging. (And the nature of political freedom.)

Of course, the comments by the blogger in question could be said to degrade blogging in and of themselves. I won't repeat them because I don't want to upset the net nanny software (which cannot distinguish between what I say and quotes from others). I think this blogger should simply have been fired. Common sense suggests that you not talk that way if you work in a public position like that and expect to keep the job.

However, something about counseling just rubs me the wrong way. If you say something, I think you should live with the fact that you said it -- no matter how right or wrong or obscene it is. Of course, if the guy is really mentally ill, that's something else, but his apology strikes me as quite sane and rational. Fire him or keep him and take the lumps. Sending an adult political blogger into counseling tends to abrogate responsibility, while medicalizing political blogging. At the very least, it creates a public perception that political blogging is a proper subject for "treatment" by mental health professionals.

I'll say this for John Edwards; at least he didn't force Amanda Marcotte into counseling.

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and to everyone for coming.

I agree with Glenn about the double effect of counseling (political reducation plus abrogation of responsibility). A win-win.

"How convenient" is right!

UPDATE: Commenter Armed Liberal asked what they really meant by "counseling," and speculates that this could mean simply "sitting with them and making sure they knew what the rules were and what was expected from them."

While I don't know the details of what type of counseling is involve (which would most likely be confidential if they involve licensed mental health professionals), what I've read states that the counseling is more than a meeting with the employee -- it has to be "successfully" completed (whatever that means) -- with termination if he fails to complete it:

Under the terms of what Boscola described as a "Condition of Continued Employment" agreement, her chief of staff, Bernard J. Kieklak, must successfully complete a course of counseling to keep his job.

Boscola said in a statement that if Kieklak fails to complete that counseling, or "[conducts] himself in a way that does not meet the higher standards that people deserve to expect from individuals in public service, he will be terminated immediately."

For this to have any "teeth," I think it's likely that the counseling involves mental health professionals.

BTW, unless I am mistaken about the nature of alcohol treatment and rehab appears that Keiklak -- and his boss -- both may have been through counseling before:

Kieklak's comments refreshed old wounds in Boscola's office. Seven years ago, the chief of staff drank with Boscola the day she was arrested for drunken driving, prompting Senate Minority Leader Robert Mellow, D-Lackawanna, to reassign Kieklak away from Boscola's office. Boscola was later admitted to the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program for first-time offenders.

Kieklak returned as Boscola's top aide in October 2001. Five months later, he checked himself into an alcohol treatment program after he was charged with drunken driving for allegedly causing a four-vehicle accident in Harrisburg. His case later was expunged.

Kieklak kept his job then, too. "Everyone deserves a second chance," Boscola said at the time.

Hmmm....

Now I'm intrigued.

Is it possible that this involves drunken blogging?

Here's Joe Owens of the Express Times:

....I believe O'Hare should have jumped in for Kieklak as part of the bloggers FDLFBD credo: Friends Don't Let Friends Blog Drunk.

It's all speculation, of course, but there's no proof that the profanities involved were alcohol laced or inspired. Anyway, in an earlier piece Senator Boscola stated that she "would require him to seek anger-management counseling as a condition of returning to work."

I don't know how much light this sheds on the inquiry, and while I still can't state definitively that I know precisely what type of counseling is involved, my common sense tells me that it contemplates licensed mental health professionals of some sort.

posted by Eric on 06.21.07 at 10:22 AM

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Comments

I think you're right, the counseling is pretty degrading, but for $94,000 a year, (which I doubt was anything near what Marcotte was being paid) I'd probably go to counselling too.

I'm slightly curious that he tendered his resignation and it was refused. Unless that was some sort of Kabuki theater.

Eric Blair · June 21, 2007 10:41 AM

"Classical Values" asserted that:

"I try not to be a foul-mouthed blogger, but if an employer didn't like what I wrote, I'd rather be fired than made to undergo counseling. Something about that undermines the inherent human dignity in recognizing simply that someone said whatever it was he said."

The sad fact of the matter is that many people, including many in pseudo-elite academic institutions, think that the historical process has unfolded so that we are beyond "human dignity." Of course, all of us for most of our lives prefer to chain ourselves and stare at the shadows in the cave. But, prior to the taking hold of therapy state post-modernist nonsense, we also at certain times had some longing to turn to see the fire, the objects casting the shadows and the path to the natural objects and perhaps even to gaze at the real sun. Helped along by mental health experts, academics and others "who simply want to help us," we are losing this longing. A wretched thought perhaps, but one we all must confront to turn back the tide of true barbarism (namely, the complete loss of the quest for some semblance of the whole).

Thomas Collins · June 21, 2007 05:45 PM

This is a fairly standard method of dealing with miscreants in university and business settings. It is degrading, and that's why it's chosen. Either the person will resign, or endure the humiliation, and be forever marked, a modern scarlet letter.

It is, however, an abuse of psychiatry. Referral for counselling entails a formal diagnosis of a mental disorder, when such is unproven. Why psychiatrists or psychologists permit the political use of their field in a democracy is unclear. But that they do permit it goes a long way toward undermining the trust people have in them (and favors the unfortunate scientology view that they are nothing but a tool of the state).

Kevin Fleming · June 21, 2007 06:38 PM

Eric,

I've been using the more generic term "Political Derangement Syndrome" [PDS w/trademark symbol] at least as long as BDS has been around. I certainly don't want to see anyone ordered into treatment for it. As bloggers, we'd have to work SO much harder to find people to make fun of!

Tully · June 21, 2007 06:58 PM

How long has counseling been available to treat "stupid"?

ken · June 21, 2007 07:08 PM

How long has counseling been available to treat "stupid"?

ken · June 21, 2007 07:09 PM

A good gig for the counselor. I know that my old auto mechanic was busted
for drunk driving and had to go to a drunk driving "class". He tried to remain
silent during the course, but the counselor insisted on calling on him for an
answer to a question posed during the class. He had a way of being very cynical,
and being from New York, rather edgy. His counselor observed more than once
that the mechanic was letting his hostility surface. "You're hostility is surfacing
again." God help us in this world if we should have hostility.

Muggins · June 21, 2007 07:13 PM

Everyone on the senator's staff is, politically, an extension of the senator, so this guys reckless behavior had to be addressed somehow. It's absolutely right, however, that this course of action is an abuse of the psychotherapeutic, uh, discipline. Discipline? That's the problem here--Kieklak hadn't enough discipline to restrain himself, and the senator doesn't have enough character of her own to some rough equivalent of a spanking--make him do 100 hours of community service if he wants to keep his job. If he realizes he has a problem and wants counseling, he can get it himself. It will actually be useful then.

clazy · June 21, 2007 09:52 PM

Hmm--that didn't come out right. Let's try that again:

Everyone on the senator's staff is, politically, an extension of the senator, so this guys reckless behavior had to be addressed somehow. It's absolutely right, however, that this course of action is an abuse of the psychotherapeutic, uh, discipline. Discipline? That's the problem here--Kieklak hadn't enough discipline to restrain himself, and the senator doesn't have enough character of her own to discipline Kieklak. He needs some rough equivalent of a spanking--make him do 100 hours of community service if he wants to keep his job. If he realizes he has a problem and wants counseling, he can get it himself. It will actually be useful then.

clazy · June 21, 2007 09:55 PM

It'd be interesting to know what they really meant by "counseling" - everyone is interpreting as seeing Dr. Malfi.

I have counseled employees who did something wrong - by sitting with them and making sure they knew what the rules were and what was expected from them.

So before we assume it's Soviet-style psychiatry, why not check?

A.L.

Armed Liberal · June 21, 2007 11:11 PM

Maybe Iowahawk will do a write up of a counseling session with Bernie Kieklak, Amanda Marcotte and a couple of right wing loonies.

Could be fun.

lonetown · June 22, 2007 05:33 AM

Exactly - a few years back I was offered counseling because I had explained to a staff member that getting fired from her job for lying about her whereabouts wouldn't help her pending single mom situation. The company offered me counseling for something or other. I chose not. Then they chose not. Best move I ever made.

bandit · June 22, 2007 09:35 AM

I'm sorry to say that enough people in my district voted for this oath breaker, and her crony seems bird of a feather.

Fire them both!

They are drinking buddies and should be given all the free time but none of the taxpayer's money to do so.

Libertarian · June 22, 2007 10:04 AM

Did you read what the guy said?

If you did, then shame on you.

Put in the context of the recent information you've been given about these people and their recent history, including drunk driving, if I were you I would have completely rewritten this piece to excoriate this bozo.

Shame on you sir for being so naive and for having even for one instant the inclination to tolerate what this guy said.

Paul A'Barge · June 22, 2007 10:21 AM

Tolerate? Did I do that? I said he should have been fired.

BTW, I don't "completely rewrite" what I write here. I edit grammatical errors, and update as I see fit.

As for excoriation, I think the man's remarks are self excoriating. I was thinking about larger issues in my post, and I have very little interest in jumping up and down and expressing moral outrage over the merits of this particular blogger's profane and idiotic remarks.

Shame on me, I guess.

Eric Scheie · June 22, 2007 02:22 PM

Under the new proposals to "tighten" the Brady background checks for exercising Second Amendment "rights" does this mean he can't? Has he now been adjudicated a mental defective? No guns for you!

Just wondering.

anonymous · June 23, 2007 01:48 AM