Md. council member Kirby Delauter's threat to sue newspaper for using his name backfires

By DAVID DISHNEAU Associated Press

The Frederick County, Maryland, councilman's name was published Tuesday in newspapers, websites, news and opinion blogs and seemingly every corner of the Internet after he threatened to sue his local newspaper if it dared to publish his name without his permission.

"Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an attorney," the Republican official told a Frederick News-Post reporter in a Facebook post.

The paper responded by ridiculing his demand.

"I just don't know how to respond to a request that stupid," Terry Headlee, managing editor of the 33,000 daily circulation newspaper, told The Associated Press on Tuesday in a telephone interview.

The News-Post did respond by posting an advance look at its Sunday editorial on the newspaper's website. It pointed out that Delauter's demand ignores, among other things, the First Amendment right of a free press.

But the newspaper could not resist mining the rich opportunities for sarcasm that Delauter's demand offered.

There was the editorial's headline: "Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter."

And the body of the editorial, describing the laughter that his demand provoked and exploring the ways The News-Post might henceforth refer to Delauter without using his name. Perhaps "K---- D-------." Or "Councilman (Unauthorized)."

Capping it off, the first letter of each paragraph spelled out: K-I-R-B-Y-D-E-L-A-U-T-E-R.

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Md. council member Kirby Delauter's threat to sue newspaper for using his name backfires