Fisher's response

Marc Fisher sent me this e-mail:

Thanks for your note. Yes, I spoke to Mr. Phillips at some length aboutthat and of course saw the various blogs that have been taking up his storyabout his encounter with Sen. Craig. I originally thought about includingthat as an aside to the license plate story, but decided against it becauseit's really pretty far afield from what I was writing about and would havetaken too much space to explain the background of the Craig situation. Inaddition, because Phillips' claim about Craig is obviously not somethingthat can be corroborated, and because it took place so long ago, theredidn't seem to be any value added for readers to insert that in adiscussion about the constitutionality and speech issues surrounding vanitylicense plates. In general, I try to err in the direction of fulldisclosure; in this instance, the Craig story was just too distinct anddifferent from the Poofter issue to be anything but a distraction.I'd be interested in hearing a good argument in the other direction. Thanksfor reading the column.