Draining the Swamp
Rod Dreher, the erratic editorial page writer for The Dallas Morning News, thinks that Fred Thompson gave an "boffo" opening speech at the GOP convention. Shorter Rod Dreher: I agree with Thompson's politics.
Personally, I was struck by Thompson's line about John McCain going to Washington to drain the swamp of alligators. No mention that the Republican alligators have controlled the White House the last eight years, the Congress for twelve of the last fourteen years, and alligator John McCain himself has prowled the halls of Congress for the last twenty six years. Will voters buy the GOP outsider line one more time or will they recognize that McCain doesn't represent change, he's the status quo?
Executive Experience and Legislative Votes
When I haven't read him in a while, I find myself thinking I respect Trey Garrison's analysis. Then he spoils it by speaking up. Garrison has bounced around Dallas, working his way up from the shabby Dallas Blog to an occasional column in the mainstream Dallas Morning News. Lately, he's been hanging out in the Opinion blog forums, making some pretty embarrassing partisan political points, embarrassing even if he weren't a supposedly professional journalist.
Trey Garrison: "[Sarah Palin] has more than executive experience than Obama. And Biden. And McCain. Put together."
When your candidate lacks experience, redefine the term to fit the candidate. Republicans have suddenly decided that "executive" experience is what's important for the Vice Presidency. Their standards for the Presidency itself are apparently different, having chosen John McCain, with no "executive" experience, for that position. Republicans have also decided that being mayor of a town of 9,000 and first-term governor of the 47th most populous state is the kind of "executive" experience that trumps legislative experience in the US Senate -- three and half years in the case of Barack Obama or decades in the cases of Joe Biden and John McCain. Isn't Trey Garrison embarrassed parroting the Republicans' "executive" experience argument?
Trey Garrison: "We certainly already know more about [Palin] than we have learned in Barack's two-plus years on the campaign trail."
Check out ontheissues.org. The track record on Obama is much, much longer than the track record on Palin. Again, an embarrassing claim.
Trey Garrison: "Obama voted 'present' more times than he voted yea or nay in his short term in the Illinois senate."
My research indicates that Obama voted present 130 times out of over 4,000 recorded votes. When challenged with the facts, Garrison replied, "I was speaking of substantive bills." In other words, Garrison will do the counting in whatever way is needed to support his falsehood. Embarrassing.
When Obama did vote 'present', he did this to signal the opposition that he was willing to compromise (a good thing, no?). In other cases he did this to signal his belief that an otherwise well-intentioned bill might in fact be unconstitutional (also good judgment). In still other cases, he did it to signal that he agreed with some provisions of a bill and opposed others, enough that he could not support the bill as a whole (again communicating more than a simple "no" vote would have).
A vote of 'present' has the same effect as a 'no' vote, so a legislator can't dodge taking a stand with a vote of 'present.' What a vote of 'present' does is communicate *why* a legislator opposes a bill. It's a good system, except for the opportunity it gives unscrupulous political opponents to mischaracterize one's voting record. Which is exactly what Trey Garrison has sunk to in this comments thread.
A Wounded Duck, Not A Soaring Eagle
Mark Davis, with a byline that says St. Paul but with content that says Planet Zork, says Sarah Palin is holding up well. Despite questions about her own baby, her unwed daughter's baby, her alleged abuse of power in punishing her brother-in-law in his divorce proceedings with her sister, her championing earmarks for Wasilla and for Alaska, her support for the bridge-to-nowhere before she was against it, her acceptance of campaign contributions from the same network that has Senator Ted Stevens facing bribery charges, ..., despite all this, Mark Davis says, implausibly, "Nothing has winged her yet."
Is he kidding? She's wounded and fighting for her political life. Mark Davis, loyal partisan that he is, is fighting for her by spouting nonsense like, "Nothing has winged her yet." And The Dallas Morning News publishes it.
Dreher, Garrison, and Davis are professional journalists. I expect objectivity and factual basis for their opinions. Maybe that's where I went wrong, but I can wish, can't I?
2 comments:
These three bozos are the Larry, Curly and Moe of hackitude. And Mike Hackimoto is the Shemp.
I expect professionalism, but what I find is the kind of mindless partisanship you can find in the comments thread. I have to believe they are smarter than that, so my guess is that they are paid to troll for arguments, to stir up controversy, to say outrageous things just to get a rise out of readers. It worked on me!
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