District Attorney Mike Harson is showing his desperation by falsely attributing quotes to his opponent and blocking journalists from his social media.

District Attorney Mike Harson is showing his desperation by falsely attributing quotes to his opponent and blocking journalists - a journalist at any rate - from his social media.

I wrote an article for the October issue of IND Monthly titled "Stutes V. The Scandal'" exploring the degree to which the pay-for-plea OWI scandal in Harson's office would impact the race. I had reached out to Harson to seek his participation in the story to no avail. One of the quotes in the story was from an anonymous source with knowledge of the political landscape in Vermilion Parish - one of three parishes that comprise the 15th Judicial District. One quote from that source was less than flattering to our neighbors to the south: "And we know how Vermilion is: the most clannish, parochial, provincial and paranoid grouping of people, and Harson has the clans - all of them."

Someone brought to my attention last week that the Harson campaign was making hay with the quote by attributing it to opponent Keith Stutes. When I found out I went to Harson's Facebook page, found the mis-attribution, offered a comment in clarification and made a screen grab:



Out of curiosity I returned to the D.A.'s Facebook page today, found the item and, sure enough, my clarification had been deleted. But not only had it been deleted: Notice, in the screen grab below, I can no longer make comments on Harson's Facebook page. I've been blocked! (It's clear I've been blocked because the small profile picture with "Write a comment..." no longer appears beneath status updates on Harson's page as it does in the image above.)

That, readers, is what we call willful deception.