There is a he-said-she-said over which our news outlets are telling us we must get bent out of shape. The only non-involved witness is gentle Buncombe County Commissioner David King. To my knowledge, King’s only fault is his love of economic development incentives for huge multinationals. His wife, as far as I can tell, is a saint.

But that’s beside the point. King is regretting organizing a meeting between Representative Tim Moffitt and his challenger, Brian Turner. Turner alleged Moffitt threatened him and tried to bribe him so he wouldn’t run. King, though of the same political persuasion as Moffitt, is siding with Moffitt. Moffitt claims Turner is misconstruing and over-reacting, perhaps even trying to trick voters in a big, cheap media campaign.

Even if I had been there paying close attention, I would not be able to tell whether Moffitt’s innocent remarks were cleverly crafted to poke invisible knives into his opponent’s psyche. Regardless of what went down, Turner looks like an amateur wimp for expecting Raleigh to be a piece of heaven without political pressures, threats, insults, and all that. Why, it is difficult to be active in local politics here without good people making sure you don’t destabilize whatever power structure they think exists. On the flipside, shedding light on weirdness would be a good way to handle it.

In the end, I’m more worried that readers will construe sweet nothings into hype to derail bigger fish to fry.