My New Year’s resolution might just have to be to stop reading the editorial in the IR. It certainly doesn’t make it easier to go to sleep at night, and it certainly isn’t teaching me anything.
The IR opens the New Year with a free pass for Mark Racicot–and a nice dose of one-sided Republican spin. Apparently, an ‘editorial’ now consists of summarizing GOP talking points provided by the former governor. Seriously, read the article. There is no other content in the piece than an uncritical summary of what Racicot had to say, essentially paraphrasing only the pro-Racicot elements of a balanced story by Mike Dennison earlier in the week.
Just two specific points illustrate the failures of the piece. First, Racicot claims that Bush dropped in the polls because he had the “guts” to try to sell reform of Social Security to an unwilling public”. It might be worth noting that Bush actually saw support for his radical overhaul of Social Security drop during his promotion of it. It would seem that the messenger was as much of a problem as the message. What’s more, the program failed largely because House Republicans were unwilling to take up the issue, knowing it was a politcal loser.
Even worse, the editorial gives Racicot a freepass on electrical deregulation in 1997, even though Mike Dennison’s balanced piece from just a day ago talked about the impact of deregulation on Montana energy prices.
I’m not even going to get into the Abramoff nonsense, or the idea that Bush is ‘focused like a laser.’
You know, in the end, the IR editor has the right to be a partisan. He just doesn’t have to be a lazy one.
Last 5 posts by Pogie
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