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EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Deborah Frisch says she has joked about becoming the left wing’s answer to Ann Coulter, the conservative pundit known for her incendiary comments and writings.
But if Frisch were practicing for the role earlier this month, she learned there can be consequences.
The adjunct psychology lecturer at the University of Arizona resigned this month after writing to a conservative blogger in Colorado that she wouldn’t care if his young son was killed in the same manner as JonBenet Ramsey.
Frisch, 44, has now moved back to Eugene, where she taught in the University of Oregon’s psychology department off and on from 1988 to 2001.
“It was in very bad taste ... very, very, very horrible,” she said in a telephone interview with the Register-Guard newspaper. “I don’t think professors should do that. I crossed the line. I think what I did was unprofessional and wrong, but I don’t think the punishment fits the crime.”
Frisch said the trouble started on Independence Day, when she found postings on Jeff Goldstein’s blog about how The New York Times’ publication of certain information was a threat to national security.
She responded, she says, with a comment about how The Times poses a much smaller threat than President Bush and his ordering of the war in Iraq.
“She came in swinging right off the bat,” said Goldstein, a former English professor at the University of Denver who’s now a stay-at-home dad. “She never once addressed the topic. It was just really whacked-out stuff.”
Frisch said postings about her responses were crude. After she noticed that Goldstein had referred to having a “tyke” in one of his blog postings, she decided to write something that would “make him feel creepy and disgusted.”
Conservatives quickly flooded the blogs of both Goldstein and Frisch. University of Arizona officials said they received numerous e-mails from people calling for Frisch to resign.
“Your comments went far beyond nasty they were psychotically sick and evil,” one writer posted on Frisch’s blog. “On my worst day, in my worst mood .. I would never in a million years conjure up the kind of sick comments you aimed at a baby. That would take a special kind of deranged obsession with hurting children, and that I cannot fathom.
Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was strangled in her Boulder, Colo., home in 1996. Her killer has never been caught. Ramsey’s mother, Patsy, died last month at age 49 of cancer.
Frisch said losing her Arizona job was not that big a deal, since she had been thinking of returning to Eugene to finish a book.
“As hard as it is to see right now, this is part of my career plan,” she said.
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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
But if Frisch were practicing for the role earlier this month, she learned there can be consequences.
The adjunct psychology lecturer at the University of Arizona resigned this month after writing to a conservative blogger in Colorado that she wouldn’t care if his young son was killed in the same manner as JonBenet Ramsey.
Frisch, 44, has now moved back to Eugene, where she taught in the University of Oregon’s psychology department off and on from 1988 to 2001.
“It was in very bad taste ... very, very, very horrible,” she said in a telephone interview with the Register-Guard newspaper. “I don’t think professors should do that. I crossed the line. I think what I did was unprofessional and wrong, but I don’t think the punishment fits the crime.”
Frisch said the trouble started on Independence Day, when she found postings on Jeff Goldstein’s blog about how The New York Times’ publication of certain information was a threat to national security.
She responded, she says, with a comment about how The Times poses a much smaller threat than President Bush and his ordering of the war in Iraq.
“She came in swinging right off the bat,” said Goldstein, a former English professor at the University of Denver who’s now a stay-at-home dad. “She never once addressed the topic. It was just really whacked-out stuff.”
Frisch said postings about her responses were crude. After she noticed that Goldstein had referred to having a “tyke” in one of his blog postings, she decided to write something that would “make him feel creepy and disgusted.”
Conservatives quickly flooded the blogs of both Goldstein and Frisch. University of Arizona officials said they received numerous e-mails from people calling for Frisch to resign.
“Your comments went far beyond nasty they were psychotically sick and evil,” one writer posted on Frisch’s blog. “On my worst day, in my worst mood .. I would never in a million years conjure up the kind of sick comments you aimed at a baby. That would take a special kind of deranged obsession with hurting children, and that I cannot fathom.
Six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was strangled in her Boulder, Colo., home in 1996. Her killer has never been caught. Ramsey’s mother, Patsy, died last month at age 49 of cancer.
Frisch said losing her Arizona job was not that big a deal, since she had been thinking of returning to Eugene to finish a book.
“As hard as it is to see right now, this is part of my career plan,” she said.
———
Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
