Let’s go back to the videotape.

“I hope we’re not being duped,” is the last word spoken in an online menagerie of clips from “Fox and Friends,” the morning talk show that broadcast a juvenile satire of the ham incident at Lewiston Middle School as truth. “I’m not making this up, I checked out on Web sites up there,” another host said.

The uproar these vapid hosts wrought on Lewiston was summarily shut down this week when the Maine Attorney General’s Office decided against pressing charges in the incident. It was the right action, for continued punitive action against the offender would serve little purpose, except to fan flames to benefit blow-dried talking heads.

Like Lou Dobbs of CNN, who not only butchered the story, but also the reputation of Lewiston School Superintendent Leon Levesque. “Mr. Superintendent, may I say, you’re out of your cotton-pickin’ mind. Do you have any sense of proportion?” said Dobbs, during his broadcast of April 24.

Levesque, LMS Principal Maureen LaChapelle, and the others who handled the fallout of these misrepresentations certainly do. They showed grace and patience, in a manner that displayed understanding and respect.

Quite unlike Dobbs, Fox, et al.