Oh, come on.

It's just politics?
"I am offended more that the Tribune chose to include this on the front page of the paper than anything Mr. Harris may have said."
Why, because the Tribune tries (sometimes) to be a newspaper, reporting things that can affect the community? What possible justification could they give for not reporting on this?

"Why is Mr. Smiths personal vendetta newsworthy?" Perhaps because it is about a public official, who seems to hold his personal actions as above the judgment of us common folk. And maybe you should ask the Tribune reporter who wrote the story, or the T.V. anchors who interviewed poor Mr. Harris as he said sorry. After of course, he had had the entire five years worth of comments erased - almost as if he knew that side of his personality could damage his reputation.

"It is appalling that Mr. Smith set a trap on the internet to spy on Justice Harris, and use his "guy talk" against him." How exactly did Mr Smith set a trap? This was a public forum! Did he invent the game? And if Mr. Smith had attempted to post on it in the hopes of luring Harris into saying something inappropriate, (Not that he needed help) I think we would have heard about it by now, since the administrators of the game are "friends" of Mr. Harris'.

"At what point can we, as users of technology, assume a fair amount of privacy when conversing with friends and family on the internet?" Well, I call it e-mail, it is kinda set up so only the people you want to can read it. Takes a lot of the guess work out of "Public" and "Private"

"Let's not forget Justice Harris never used a county computer for personal use. Period." Actually, that has not been proven. He played that game for five years, and his computer was only monitored for a few months. But I'll give you innocent until proven guilty on that one. For now.

I notice she doesn't claim that he never he played or posted during work hours. Kinda hard to spin that I guess. I notice she says nothing about a Judge discussing killing a man for minor vandalism and burying him in a coulee. Just a good ol' boy, letting off steam, ya know. She doesn't mention how the people who have been married by Harris over the years can now look back on that beautiful day and remember that the Judge was counting his dollars while they said "I do". Must not be important.
She doesn't mention that the man who now wishes us to cut him a little slack and accept that he is a human, with flaws, threw a single mother in jail for failure to pay a civil judgment. She fails to consider that the man who stated under oath that viewing gay porn made him physically ill has no problem joking about gays, or porn, and possibly even socializes with gay men.

This is not just about words, typed on a game forum. It is about the man behind those words and the character that has been revealed. It is not about what a newspaper chooses to print. This is about the the people we are willing to give power over our lives to, and how those people use that power. Has Sam Harris violated the trust we put in him when we elected him? Has he abused the office we gave him? Does he have the moral and ethical high ground when he pronounces judgment on us?
Is he above reproach?