Don't cut off my head!

Statement from Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Miami Township, that was just sent out to reporters by her re-election campaign:

"No one particularly enjoys being called names. However, even those that abandon the facts and create pure fiction have rights. As a public official you must have thick skin.

However, Tom Brinkman has gone too far.

Cutting a head off in effigy is something we expect from radical lunatics, not Republican lawmakers.

At a recent C.O.A.S.T. fundraiser, Tom Brinkman again compared me to Marie Antoinette. Only this time he took it a step further and posed for the cameras severing my head with a long knife on a large cake with my likeness.

Mr. Brinkman's actions speak far louder than words could ever express.

I am told Mr. Brinkman and his followers in attendance, including my opponent Bob McEwen, all laughed as he placed the knife to my throat and cut. They had a great time pretending to cut off my head.

Mr. Brinkman's distortions of my voting record are laughable. Tom cutting my hroat in effigy is well beyond political discourse, it is sick.

I don't expect Mr. Brinkman to change his stripes but I do hope he has the common decency apologize to the people of Cincinnati and to repudiate his sickening behavior."