Dead babies in your back yard - Christian stupidity in America

Dead babies in your back yard - Christian stupidity in America

15 Jan 2002

Truth is stranger than fiction Tennessee district attorney denies having dead babies in his back yard

COOKEVILLE - In a sworn deposition, William E. "Bill" Gibson, Attorney General of Tennessee's Thirteenth Judicial District, denied having dead babies in his back yard.

The denial stemmed from a 1998 article written by c.d. norman and published in The Putnam Pit, an online newspaper, headlined "How many dead babies in Bill Gibson's back yard?" The article described two infant deaths, both in California, in which the child was killed by breast milk containing methamphetamine. One paragraph read,

The 13th Judicial District (William E. Gibson, District Attorney General) leads the state in the production of methamphetamine. As the methamphetamine epidemic spreads, residents should expect to see increased numbers of dead babies turning up in the county morgues.

Gibson apparently, after reading the headline, interpreted the article to be, literally, an inquiry into the number of dead babies buried in his back yard.

"The article, I mean, it certainly says and implies that there's dead babies in my back yard," Gibson said in his deposition. "If there's a headline that says 'Dead babies in the D.A.'s back yard,' what does that say? The D.A. is a child killer. The D.A. is hiding... You know, the D.A. is a John Wayne Gacy. The D.A. has got dead babies buried all around in his yard."

It is not certain to what extent Gibson even has a back yard. He is known to live in an apartment, but maintains, "I do have a back yard."

Also uncertain is whether Gibson actually read the article. When asked if he had read the article, Gibson replied, "I can't remember the... I can't really remember the substance of that article. I think I read part of it and just quit, because it's disturbing to read something like that about dead babies in my back yard," Gibson testified. When asked whether he had read the entire article, Gibson said, "Well, if I could read the article now, I could tell you for sure." Presumably, Gibson would, after reading the article, be able to tell for sure whether he had read the article.

Asked whether it was possible that "back yard" was merely a figure of speech, Gibson countered, "I guess it's possible, but I don't know how."

Gibson's failure to identify the headline as a figure of speech is not surprising to anyone familiar with his academic record. Gibson graduated from Putnam County Senior High School with a D average, a spectacular feat considering that even the thickest attendee of PCSHS could pull down a C simply by showing up. In Gibson's senior year, students were allowed to opt out of regular English or Literature classes in favor of "Individualized Reading," a class, taught by a football coach, in which the curriculum consisted of doing absolutely nothing.

Gibson went on to reap further academic glory at Tennessee Technological University, where he garnered a D in English Literature and two D's in American History.

Under cross-examination, Gibson admitted that he was unfamiliar with the concept of a writer's point of view but, demonstrating that his mastery of the English language is more than enough to satisfy his Tennessee constituents, Gibson swore, "I know what a paragraph is," and issued a final, grammatically-challenged denial: "There's no dead babies in my back yard."