Intern for U.S. senator ends embarrassing break-up e-mail to girlfriend.
In June 2003 the brutal break-up e-mail quoted above was fired off by Paul Kelly Tripplehorn, Jr., an intern employed in the office of a U.S. Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, to his now-former girlfriend, Michele. And once again, an e-mail meant for just one recipient escaped into the wilds of the Internet and caused untold embarrassment and professional difficulties for its originator.Once the intemperate missive hit the Internet at large and assumed the proportions of a cyber-national scandal, Mr. Tripplehorn was dismissed from his internship, according to the Washington Post:'As soon as it was brought to the attention of our internship coordinator, they had a very frank discussion, and he was dismissed,' Kevin Schweers told us about the late-June incident involving Tripplehorn, a 20-year-old Amherst College sophomore, and his ex-girlfriend, an unnamed 20-year-old University of Texas student.For his part, Mr. Tripplehorn denied that he had been fired:Tripplehorn disputed that he was fired and said he's now interning in the office of a Republican House member he refused to identify. 'What I did was wrong,' he told us. 'I wrote that letter in under 15 minutes in an absolute rage, and the only purpose of it was to make this girl irritated and push her buttons.'Unfortunately for Mr. Tripplehorn, the 'send' button was the one button he shouldn't have pushed. His line - 'I could make a phone call and have your life absolutely ruined' - assumed an irony he certainly didn't anticipate.
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