War is on in Seattle

The war is on in Seattle.

It’s even moving to the media. One of Seattle’s sports-talk radio hosts, Mike Gastineau, has engaged me in emails the last 24 hours, trying to convince me that Clay Bennett is a liar. Here is a sampling:

“Trust me, Seattle gets the whole ’arena or we’ll leave thing.’ It’s just that in this case, it’s finally become obvious to people that these guys are liars. Their stated goals and actual goals don’t match up.  If his stance was  really ‘I want to do business in Seattle and I’m willing to listen to anyone and any idea,’ then he’d find some help up here. But that’s another example of him saying one thing while doing another. He refuses to discuss a renovation. He refuses to meet with the Muckleshoot Tribe. He refuses to consider local minority owners.

“He wants to move the team to OKC. It’s obvious. It’s natural. It makes sense. That was the plan from day one. All the rest is just needless BS including your theory that Seattle has somehow blown this. Seattle never had a chance.  Trust me on this one. If, in 30 years, seven guys from say, Omaha, buy the Oklahoma City SiloSonics and then start talking about how they REALLY don’t want to move the team to the town where they LIVE, WORK, and WERE BORN, then you’ll have a much better grasp of how people up here feel.”

Now, I don’t like getting into media horseplay on issues. I write what I write for the paper and I say what I say for the radio, and I don’t see why I need to debate an individual who obviously has a different viewpoint. But I always answer my email, and this guy was no different. Here was my response: