Oh, Missoulian Editorial Page, How I Love Thee

Dear Missoulian,

While I support your position that elected officials and those seeking public office should answer questionnaires about their viewpoints, I also support the idea that newspapers should do actual research before printing editorial opinions.

When you claimed that Denny Rehberg completed the Project Vote Smart Political Courage test, it might have been fair to note that he skipped the hard questions. Maybe there is a better explanation for why Rehberg had no answer for any international questions, including Iraq, took no stand on the budget or military spending, and had no real position on campaign finance law, but I think the most likely answer is that Rehberg didn’t want the public to know what he thought.

Given that it took me all of two minutes to discover that Rehberg hadn’t answered these questions, shouldn’t professional journalists have made the time to do so before printing a claim in an editorial?

Thanks,

Don

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Article by Don Pogreba

Don has written 1335 posts for us. He is an English and debate teacher in Helena, MT. When not writing here or working on debate handbooks, he is writing about educational issues at Prairie Pedagogue.