He said, he said

I wrote Marc Fisher one last e-mail before moving on. We have so much trouble doing that:

As per the Phillips story, my only concern would be that leaving out that information would seem (and I stress seem) tantamount to ignoring a "gay story": i.e, would that same latitude have been givento someone involved in a heterosexual story. Would you have, forinstance, published an innocuous story about Jessica Cutler during the initial outbreak of that story without mentioning her involvement in a sex scandal. I realize that the two cases have striking differences, specifically the ones that you mentioned but it still raisesquestions. Also, other bloggers have raised the issue of whether the government's reaction to his license plate (which had to be initiated by aresident, as I understand) could have anything to do with his claimsagainst Sen. Craig. They would be wrong in assuming -- as some have --that the reaction could have been initiated by Craig or someone in his office, etc. I think they would be right, however, in questioning if a citizen who knew of Phillips' claims might have seeked retribution, albeit in a sort of arbitrary and meaningless way.

Fisher fired right back. Well, not fired, really. He calmly answered -- wow, that sounds a lot less exciting:

You raise good points. One of them is easy: The state's move against the"poofter" license plate well predated Phillips' decision to tell anyone about his encounter with Craig, so there is no issue of the state potentially taking retaliatory action against Phillips. Your other point is of course harder and is the core of the question. Cutler doesn't work as ananalogy for me because there was corroborating evidence to her claims from the very start of her case; indeed, her decision to out her partner byusing their mutual communications is what pushed that story into the public arena and certainly into the mainstream press. In this case, we have only Phillips' word, which I am personally inclined to believe, but which does not rise to the level of publishable evidence, which is why no reputable outlet has published that story. I don't think the particular sexuality of the characters involved plays any role here...

Alright. Sounds fair, I suppose. Now all we have to do is prove Phillips' story. But who wants to spend all the time thinking about it?