Year in Review: Strange But True

From kitty cut-ups to an airline named Ted, this was one oddball year.

A A A Comments By Ernie Tucker Thursday, Dec 25 2003

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Patriot games:The Washington Post, though, meant every word when it noted one standout in the increasingly bland Congress: Representative Tom Tancredo. Tom Terriff, the Post cheered, "shows promise of someday rising to legendary status" as a kook. A Snowmass Village planner didn't fare as well after talking to the Aspen Times. Promised anonymity for her criticisms of an Aspen Skiing Co. project, she was easily identified -- since her job and gender were mentioned and she was the only possible suspect. The Timeswasn't the only Aspen newspaper to besmirch itself. The Aspen Daily News went Kobe-free for days, intentionally ignoring the strangest-but-truest event of 2003: Bryant's sexual-assault case unfolding 75 miles away in tiny Eagle, where hundreds of journalists camped out to capture every move of the Lakers hoop star.

Panty raid:And what did readers of the Aspen Daily News miss? Among other things, descriptions of everyone's favorite Eagle legal eagle, District Attorney Mark Hurlbert, so hot to spray motions that he became unglued at times. In legal documents filed on October 21, the DA seemed totally caught up in the passion of the case and asked the court to use a July 24 order to whack any lawyer or law-enforcement officers leaking prejudicial material to the media. Hurlbert was particularly angered by an October 11 New York Daily News exposé revealing that semen from multiple partners had been found in underwear belonging to Bryant's alleged victim -- a tidbit leaked by a local judge who'd talked to a Bryant attorney. As Hurlbert inaccurately reported the judge's quote in the News(the italics are ours), "There was more than one man's seamen in [the victim's] panties." And then Hurlbert went on to conclude, "There appears to be a pattern [of] disregard for the Court's orders that cumulated with the Jones' leak."

Christopher Smith

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All in all, it was a strange, leaky year.

Compiled from mounds of newspapers, press releases,Westword archives and interviews.