The State - News from Feb. 12, 1988

Rep. Doug Bosco (D-Calif) says he might sue a country editor who admits he printed a phony interview between the lawmaker and a Des Moines Register political reporter. Bosco said his offices in Santa Rosa and Washington were swamped with telephone calls from constituents shocked to read last week’s story headlined “Bosco to oil protesters: You’re stupid and unpatriotic.” The congressman, in the phony story, called environmentalists opposed to offshore oil drilling a group of “malcontents who couldn’t care less about anything else except their beautiful ocean and where their next ‘joint’ is coming from. . . .” Bruce Anderson, who edits and publishes the Anderson Valley Advertiser in Boonville, at first said he would “stand by my story until the cows come home.” But he later admitted the story was a hoax, saying it was necessary to “get at the higher truth.” Announcing he was contemplating a suit against Anderson, Bosco said, “If I had a dime for every time he said something bad about me, I’d be a rich man.”