Friday, October 22, 2010

Juan Williams and His Foxy Friends

The cancelation of Juan Williams’ contract was handled poorly by NPR and by Williams. Over the years I have grown to respect Williams as an objective professional journalist. But recently I have witnessed a transformation, perhaps in part due to his camaraderie with Fox and friends. Williams now follows the money and gets a huge pay raise as he smoothly transitions to Fox. I find myself wondering if Williams could have pushed the envelope a bit. Last week his close colleague Bill O'Reilly made hay out of his own bigoted remarks on "The View". Fox made no apologies for O’Reilly. Instead, Fox and friends have capitalized on the event, as they characteristically do when anyone pushes back at their subjective views. Subjectivity has no place in professional journalism. Subjective media outlets on the left and right are now aggressively usurping the role of objective journalism nationwide. This is causing serious injury to our democratic processes and the very fabric of our American society. NPR and PBS are two of the last sources in our country for objective reporting and critical analysis. We can’t afford to lose either one. Let's hope NPR can learn from their personnel mistakes and we can all put this issue to rest.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

On the Dole and Taking from the Rove

If you check politifact, Harry Reid gets a C for telling half truths, but Sharron Angle gets a D- for making statements that are false.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/sharron-angle/

In the debate she said she is not a career politician but a grandmother and a teacher. TRUTH: she’s unemployed and technically living on her husband’s government pension check. She has a spotty record of unemployment. According to her web page her teaching experience includes teaching art at the Elko campus of WNCC as a lecturer (5 years), and running a very small (less than 30 students) Christian school for 2 years, and she also says she was a substitute teacher for 25 years which (meaning on any given day they call you can say no). She says she’s not a career politician but she’s made a career out of running for political office. She was in the State Assembly 4 terms (1999 to 2005) where she got a reputation for voting no, and she sought and failed to get elected to U.S. Congress in 2006. After that she began running for the U.S. Senate.

As for funding, she is not being bankrolled by Nevadans, but by George Bush operatives Carl Rove and Ed Gillespi (American Crossroads.org). If you had a problem with Bush, you are in the wrong camp. A comparison of her web sites before and after the primary and the RNC makeover reveal her official positions have shifted. Some of you criticize Reid for being a career politician. But so is Angle; she is an itinerant educator at best. You criticize Reid for making deals. So has Angle; they’ve been recorded on cell phone calls. You criticize Reid for half truths, but he is more honest than she is according to fact checkers.

This is not a glowing endorsement of Reid, but a reality check on Angle. Reid has channeled over a billion dollars our way since the economic crisis began because of his clout in the Senate. Sharron will not do the same. She has a history of trying to dismantle government and voting and has all but said she not get us one thin dime from Washington. This is no time for a “throw the baby out with the bath” mindset. We need solutions that infuse our state with the resources we need to build our education system so we will have the skilled work force necessary to grow our economy. And we need tax breaks for small businesses and moratoriums on mortgage foreclosures. Harry Reid has been passing legislation to do just that. Check his web page for recent accomplishments. Angle has little to show in legislative accomplishments. While she lives on the dole and takes funds from the Rove she seeks to improve her own situation with her own federal paycheck and a “Cadillac” benefits package.