The first reaction to this week’s Woodstock Independent editorial, still not on the internet, attacking Joe Tirio for daring to file a lawsuit to discover who is responsible for maligning him came from Woodstock Republican Precinct Committeeman Richard Rostron:

Very disappointed in Cheryl Wormley and crew

After reading this garbage, and speaking as a former sports editor with The Woodstock Independent, this ‘editorial’ doesn’t hit Joe, it hits The Independent.

And it hits right where no publication can afford a blow – to the solar-plexus of their credibility.

To the degree that The Independent has, previously, stayed above the fray, they have now gone all-in headfirst.

While the writer expects us to make an impossible, Evil-Kenevil leap of faith to buy into this nonsense, there’s no need to stretch the imagination, or even look creatively at the idea of doing so, to see that this piece of trash came straight from the ‘pen’ of Jack Franks or one of his minions.

This is Franks’ way of hitting back now that he’s on the hot seat.

It’s foolish to think that he wouldn’t do so.

It’s in his nature.

In his campaign for McHenry County Board Orville Brettman called for draining the swamp.

He’s lived in The Swamp of local and Illinois politics (with little, head-swelling dabbles in national politics) for so long that he has intravenously swapped any traces of character or honor that he once might have possessed with the self-serving fluid of Political Swamp Water.

The only sad and surprising thing here is that The Independent chose to join him for a splash in The Swamp.

Someone should point out to the folks at The Inde that the toxic nature of The Swamp leaves a residue and odor that doesn’t wash off easily.