The man who put the “ASS” in Assemblyman, now former California Assemblyman Mike Duvall (R-Yorba Linda), has come up with a new spin on the sordid, adultrous affair with a lobbyist with business before a committee he vice-chaired.
According to the new statement on his website, he was not divulging details of his trysts into the hot mic in an Assembly chamber but “engaging in inappropriate story-telling.”
And like any good Republican who believes in taking personal responsibility for one's life choices, Duvall blames the REAL villain in the resulting national uproar: the media!
His full statement follows . . .
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“I want to make it clear that my decision to resign is in no way an admission that I had an affair or affairs. My offense was engaging in inappropriate story-telling and I regret my language and choice of words. The resulting media coverage was proving to be an unneeded distraction to my colleagues and I resigned in the hope that my decision would allow them to return to the business of the state.”
Interestingly, the LA Times, which credited KCBS with breaking the story and not co-breaker OC Weekly (a sin of omission the Times have failed to correct as of their most recent posts), quickly put Duvall's new-spin statement up at 7:19 a.m. this morning like it was fact or something. Guess the badly beaten Times reporters were trying to latch onto any scraps they could by that point in the news cycle:
Former Orange County Assemblyman Michael Duvall, who resigned after inadvertently broadcasting explicit remarks about his sexual conquests over an open microphone, this morning said that his resignation was not an admission that he had an affair.
However, cooler heads at the Times apparently re-read Duvall's statement and updated the post:
[Updated at 10:52 a.m.: Duvall's statement left some questions unanswered. The headline of his statement says that he “denies reports” that he had an affair. But in the statement itself, he says his resignation should not be viewed as an admission that he had an affair.]
The Orange County Register, which had demonstrated the good form to note the Weekly's role in breaking the story from the get-go, had a no-bones post about Duvall's new spin an hour after the Times. But they've beat the Times (and Weekly for that matter) like a pinada in pushing forward the stories on those lining up to succeed Duvall.
But, back to Duvall's new spin, it is false to believe that in the face of ethics investigations that could uncover new, potentially criminal evidence of wrongdoing, the disgraced politician is attempting with this new statement to distance himself from an affair or affairs with lobbyists.
No, we are instead to believe that Duvall is a TOTAL LIAR who spends his time doing the people's business spinning tall tales about perverted tales involving women much younger than the married father of two who claimed to be the bastion of morality while working hard to deny marriage rights to all Californians and lapping up ethics awards from Chapman University.
Thanks for that clarification, Mikey. You da' man! And on behalf of your now former constituents, thanks for kicking your own scummy ass to the curb.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.