Walters may not be responsible for images on screen, just the one of himself as the worst person any of us know
Remember “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
Remember Damone standing Stacy up the day she was to have an abortion?
Damone, Ridgemont's resident ticket scalper, tried to come up with the money. He calls his clients who owe him but they can’t pay up. Unable to come up with the dough, Damone makes a poor decision, making himself scarce. When Stacy, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, calls his house one last time, Damone’s mother tells her he’s working in the garage with his father.
Spoiler, Stacy found a way to pay for it herself, told her brother Brad, played by the inimitable Judge Reinhold, she was meeting friends to go bowling only to cross the street after jumping out of the car. Brad saw her go into the clinic in his rear view mirror and was waiting for her when she came out. He was understanding. Did not demand answers. There for her.
Judge Reinhold should be everybody’s brother.
Well, Linda, Phoebe Cates’ character, was not having it.
“That little prick,” she says.
“Please don’t do anything,” Stacy says. “I don’t even like the guy.”
“He’s not a guy,” Linda says. “He’s a little prick.”
Cue next scene …
Damone coming out of his second-floor apartment — apparently, the scalping business allowed him to have his own place, apart from his parents, even in high school — sets his eyes downward and sees “PRICK” painted on the driver’s side of his car
And when he gets to his locker …“LITTLE PRICK” emblazoned across it.
He did not step up. He said he would and he didn’t. He deserved it.
Also?
Damone, in that movie, is still a far better guy than Ryan Walters has been, period, and over the past two weeks, too, ever since state board of education members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage first saw nude images on the television screen in his office during executive session on July 24.
He’s been far worse than Damone, even though, it now appears, the nude images on his screen may have been nothing more than an accident, caused as innocently as somebody sitting on the remote.
Just last week, in this column, I posed the theory that, perhaps, Samsung did it, because the Samsung television in both my house and, according to a 32-page report delivered by Alias Cybersecurity, Walters’ office, upon being turned on, go directly to Samsung’s TV Plus channel lineup, and when Walters’ television was turned on two Mondays ago to be investigated, Samsung TV Plus channel 1204 “Movie Hub Action” displayed and it just so happens innumerable action movies also contain nude scenes.
It’s House Speaker Kyle Hilbert (R-Bristow) who’s giving himself credit for figuring it out .
The Oklahoman’s Murray Evans, the man with all the stories, began this one, first appearing on the newspaper’s website on Tuesday — it has since been updated —like this:
Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert says he believes a 1985 movie starring Jackie Chan might have been what was showing on a television set in state schools Superintendent Ryan Walters’ office during a closed session held as part of last month’s state Board of Education meeting.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Aug. 5, Hilbert said his research, using information gleaned from a report given to legislators on July 30, led him to conclude the movie “The Protector” appeared on the television set. According to the website IMDb, which provides detailed information about movies, that film includes “full frontal nudity [that] is non-erotic.”
Hilbert also said this, reported by NonDoc.
“This information seems to vindicate both the state superintendent as well as the two board members. It is not credible to believe that the superintendent or any member of his staff intentionally played an inappropriate film in the middle of an active board meeting. Additionally, it does not appear that Samsung’s internal movie channels list streamable content days in advance so a planned conspiracy would be highly unlikely. Instead, the available evidence points to a bizarre accident involving a newly installed television defaulting to a pre-programmed channel.”
Great.
Maybe now we can move on from what appeared on the screen to the aftermath of what appeared on the screen.
We can remember what Walters’ said about it in an interview with Fox 25’s Wendy Suares, followed by a press conference. Because in both, for Hilbert’s theory to be true, Walters told nothing but lies, because lies have long been his currency.
Only this time, to accept vindication, Walters must admit his lies … or say nothing and hope Oklahomans have short memories, which he’s bound to do.
Nonetheless, remember this?
“What we’ve seen here is the grossest lies and political attack the state’s ever seen. We have a cable TV box back there, and we have a gross accusation that’s already been proven by OMES and the [Oklahoma County] sheriff’s office to be impossible to have happened.
“There’s no devices connected to that cable TV. It’s a cable TV set. We’ve got board members that are lying and crucifying my character to stop the work we’re doing here for Oklahoma and I will not tolerate these lies, the character assassination.”
And how about this?
“To be crystal clear, media, liars, you will not stop these reforms coming to Oklahoma. You will not stop the agenda that the people of Oklahoma put me in office to help achieve. We will continue to fight for the parents of Oklahoma. We will continue to ensure these board members are held accountable. They should resign in disgrace for the lies that they’ve told and we should get back to work for the people of Oklahoma.”
When the only liar was him.
Carson and Deatherage, in a joint statement reported by The Oklahoman, said this:
“What we saw on TV is content that would get the certificate of any teacher in this state revoked had it showed up on a classroom TV. Now we have to ask the question: Why did Superintendent Walters lie about the TV being connected to the internet and what he saw on the TV that day? He repeatedly called the board members liars and attempted to destroy our reputation.”
Because you can’t get rich and powerful doing it, Walters is likely done with the classroom, but if still has a teaching license that can be revoked, wouldn’t it be a fantastic, dramatic and justified gesture if the board Walters purports to lead were to revoke it right in front of him at the board’s next meeting.
Also, one hopes, the journalists who cover him will not forget.
The next time he vilifies somebody for no good reason but his own political advantage, the first question to him could go something like this:
“Yeah, Ryan, I here what you’re saying, but do you really mean it, are you telling the truth here, or is this just another case of you lying to advance your own agenda, like you did after board members saw naked women on your television?”
As mentioned in the first column I wrote on the issue, the number of infractions, the clear corruption and his infinite inability to do his job should have had him thrown out of office a long ago, but maybe this one will do the trick.
Looks like it won’t.
On the other hand, he’s no longer an accused liar, but a proven one, and there ought to be consequences.
Nobody need vandalize his car. Or, if he has one, his locker.
All of us know who Ryan Walters is.