Tim Giago: The final showdown with Chuck Trimble

Opinion

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The latest diatribe against me by Chuck “Wobbie” Trimble is more of the same. A mixture of lies and half-truths disguised as fact.

It is too bad that a man with such a good record as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians should sink so low as to air his vicious, personal attacks upon someone he has known all of his life.

For all of the faithful readers of Indianz.com, this will be the last time I reply to anything written about me by Trimble because it is impossible to reply to a pack of lies and half truths without climbing into the gutter with the attacker.

I stand on my record of more than 30 years of writing and for the many good things that have been accomplished in Indian country by the newspapers I have owned over those 30 years.

I am much too busy publishing my weekly Native Sun News to get into a mudslinging contest with Wobbie. There is an old saying that goes, “Never get into a pissing contest with a skunk because you will surely lose.”

I hope Wobbie starts to do something constructive in his old age because one so filled with hate and anger does more harm to himself than to the person he would attack and attempt to demean.

This man needs professional help. I have a hundred reasons to bring a libel suit against him and to the news sources that reprint his lies, but I will not waste my time or money on such a useless scoundrel.

I want to thank all of my friends in Indian country who get a good laugh out of Wobbie and his missives against me. Many of them are lifetime friends and they know who the liar is in this confrontation.

Chuck is such a good, little Catholic boy and he has been really upset over columns I have written about the abuse of Indian children at Catholic boarding schools. Perhaps he should read his Bible and determine if what he is trying to do to me fits into his Catholic upbringing. Never mind that there are hundreds of Lakota and others who agree with my articles on the abuse of Indian children at the boarding schools. Attacking me will not change that fact, Chuck.

What is he doing is trying to do is destroy my reputation and credibility as a writer and as a newspaper publisher with lies and innuendoes. I will continue to publish my paper and from this moment on totally ignore Mr. Trimble and his hate filled mind.

There will be Indian newspapers that will publish his diatribe without bothering to call me and seek out the truth and if there is one weakness in the efforts of Indianz.com, this is one of the most glaring. Everything sent to you is not the truth. This is yellow journalism at its finest.

This is my final word on Mr. Trimble so fire away Wobbie, the battlefield is all yours.

Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the publisher of Native Sun News. He was the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association, the 1985 recipient of the H. L. Mencken Award, and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1991. Giago was inducted into the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2008. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com. His latest book, “Children Left Behind” is available through publish@clearlightbooks.com or at amazon.com.