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Buchanan clashes with radio host over Wecht case, tells him to ‘shut up’
Former U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan on Thursday got into a heated discussion with a Pittsburgh radio host about her handling of the high-profile prosecution of pathologist Cyril Wecht, at one point seeming to threaten the host with a defamation suit.
The on-air confrontation came after KDKA 1020‘s Marty Griffin had interviewed Wecht, who Buchanan prosecuted for allegedly misusing his office of county coroner for private gain. Those charges were eventually dropped, and political insiders recently predicted that the Wecht case would prove a political headache for Buchanan as she seeks to unseat Congressman Jason Altmire (D-4).
Those predictions started to come true on Thursday, when Buchanan called into the show and immediately went after Wecht for making what she called false statements about the costs of the unsuccessful prosecution and criticized Griffin for giving them airtime (Wecht said the case cost taxpayers $20 million).
“We still have defamation laws in this country,” Buchanan said. “And to the extent that you keep repeating things are flat-out wrong, you’re running afoul. That case could not have cost the government more than $500,000, and that’s on the outside.”
The interview quickly devolved, with Buchanan attacking Griffin’s journalistic fairness, and at one point telling him to “shut up” as the host held his ground.
“You threaten to sue me,” Griffin said, “now you’re saying I’m not fair, you’re saying I have no listeners, you told me to shut up. All this in one conversation.”
Coming just a day after she formally declared her candidacy, it was a rough opening act for Buchanan, who mostly eschewed talking to reporters in the months leading up to her announcement.
Click here to listen to the interview.
February 19, 2010 at 6:00 am
Tags: Cyril Wecht, Jason Altmire, Mary Beth Buchanan, PA-4
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Lee Levan
Feb 19th, 2010
This, folks, IS Mary Beth Buchanan. What you see (or more literally what John described) is what you get if she somehow is elected. She is a rigid ideologue who has zero tolerance for anyone who sees things differently than she does. This is the worst type of person to entrust with public power.
dave
Feb 19th, 2010
Mary Beth Buchanan = Not Ready for Prime Time.
Lew
Feb 19th, 2010
RUN MARY RUN. Trouble with “truth” as the host sees it is you can’t bend it, shade it, or just call it THE TRUTH..when it isn’t and it still be the truth.
Republicans for Jason!
Feb 19th, 2010
Jason Altmire is too good of a Congressman, family man, and public servant to lose to a Bush crony like MBB. This sort of public behavior shows that she lacks the temperment to serve in the US House and the citizens of the Fourth District.
Frank
Feb 19th, 2010
Jason Altmire voted for the stimulus because we needed to push through a bill, any bill, immediately without any debate or dialogue otherwise the world would come to an end. Well, that didn’t happen. Thanks to Altmire we are now $800 billion poorer and unemployment has risen even more. When the good people of Cranberry Twp wonder why inflation is soaring and their taxes have gone up, they can thank Altmire for caving in to Nancy Pelosi and voting for the stimulus. That’s an $800 billion lapse in judgement.
Greg K., PA
Feb 19th, 2010
Frank – calm down before you give yourself a coronary. Unemployment is down, job losses are way down, and inflation is actually still at a reasonable 2.6 percent. I imagine that most economists would agree that keeping inflation between 2 and 5 percent is good for the economy – steady growth without significant devaluation of the currency.
Lee Levan
Feb 19th, 2010
Or, Frank, perhaps Bush the Younger gave such irresponsible free reign to his buddies on Wall Street that there was no rational choice except to pass the stimulus bill to prevent the unemployment rate from going much higher than it actually did. Altmire made the difficult choice and did what needed to be done for the people of his district and the country.
Rob
Feb 19th, 2010
Buchanan must be taking advice from her pal Specter on how to behave on talk shows. Specter is responsible for creating Mary Beth Buchanan. She was his pick, not Santorum’s, and and Specter tried hard to promote her to the U.S. Court of Appeals and to the U.S. District Court on several occasions. As if we needed more reasons to remember why Specter needs to be retired. He can take Ms. Buchanan with him; maybe she’ll act like a lady.
Karl Jacobson
Feb 20th, 2010
Buchanan will never sue Griffin, because it would reopen the whole Wecht case. Settle down Mary and meditate, you will feel much better.