Calling Levar Burton!

I need to find Levar Burton’s phone number.  I have a great piece to be featured on Reading Rainbow.

I’ve never really enjoyed works of fiction.  It probably stems back to the fact that my father used to read David McCullough’s Truman to me as a child.  Over Christmas break I did enjoy Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, but it’s nowhere as entertaining as the recent news surrounding Jason Levesque’s scuffle with the Auburn Public Library.

Levesque is a telemarketer (I’ll save the Do Not Call puns for a future piece) from Auburn seeking the Republican Nomination to challenge Mike Michaud for Congress in Maine’s Second Congressional District.  On Janaury 29, Levesque planned a campaign Meet and Greet event at the Auburn Public Library–with a cover charge.  According to the Library’s meeting room reservation policy (PDF):

Meetings must be free of charge, and not held with the intention of generating

revenue.  Closed meetings must pay full rental fee and comply with all other

regulations.

The Library cancelled the event when it learned of Levesque’s plan to charge an admission fee–clearly in violation of the library’s reservation policies (not to mention that Levesque never actually signed the room reservation agreement).

But rather than simply quash the plan to charge a fee and hold the event at the library, Jason Levesque positioned himself to be the next Dan Brown–he made a story up!

Turning to Facebook, Levesque wrote:

The reason for the move was due to a very Liberal board member who after seeing me on TV Thursday decided to have the Library cancel my event

Not quite.  According to Robert on As Maine Goes:

After seeing the meeting posted on facebook, a former board member, who is a Republican, called someone to voice his concern about the fundraiser that violated the library’s rule.

Levesque was called and asked to come in, he said he would be down shortly. He never showed. Another call between the library and Levesque took place. I can’t remember who placed that call. Levesque supposedly got very abusive, and was told to contact the library’s board president. He was provided with a contact number. I don’t know if he ever called.

Whether or not Robert’s post on AMG is accurate is irrelevant–for a guy who slams the relatively moderate Michaud for being too partisan, trying to spin a violation of rules (an unsigned contract) into something about ideology is utterly ridiculous.

One must wonder if Congressman Levesque would attempt to portray all rules inconvenient to him as ultra-partisan.  Ethics rules?  Lobbying?  Election law?  Damn liberals!

I’ll offer my apologies in advance to Mr. Levesque before quoting Holden Caulfield, the immortal character in the late J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, as I never like hurting the feelings of telemarketers:

All morons hate it when you call them a moron.

Moron.

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