Uninquisitive

I think that I’ve figured out the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs’ problem. When the Aetogate scandal whipped up enough fuss to force them to hold an official inquiry, they pulled ‘Inquiries 101’ off the shelf, only to discover that most of the pages had been ripped out. What they had was this:

• Convening your panel (although the meaning of a partial page headed “Conflicts of-” had been lost forever).


• Taking evidence from accused party.

Unfortunately, their reference volume was missing these rather vital sections:

• Taking evidence from the accusing party.


• Identifying discrepancies in the opposing testimonies.


• Investigating and untangling said discrepancies.


• Reaching a balanced conclusion.

The missing pages led to the rather truncated proceedings reported on in yesterday’s Albuquerque Journal (see also Julia and Brian’s takes) . On the plus side, we now have Spencer Lucas’ response (pdf) to Parker and Martz’s accusations (see the The Reptipage for some analysis). Unfortunately, however, the “inquiry” didn’t seem particularly curious about the numerous places in the rebuttal of Parker’s allegations where the two accounts obviously conflict, leaving us outside observers with a “he said”, “she said” situation, and nothing really resolved.