Political Football

I’m starting to hate politics again.  My biggest problem is as I’ve documented frequently on this blog, the party of the Right seems to have to fight media bias to even get the real story out.

And some of the bias is darn subtle too – check here for this story by Brian Ross.  I’ll post the important paragraph below:

U.S. officials declined to identify who the operation was targeting, but indicated they were after a “High Value Target” (HVT). Official sources would not rule out that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself was the intended victim.

victim?  really?  poor OBL or is it UBL.   whatever.

In honor of this irritation today I will collect a current set of examples of media bias as a THIRD media bias page on this blog. (this weekend if I can stomach it)

[UPDATE!!! March 4 - Well I never got to the Media Bias 3 page today but I did see - and this is just plain funny - they changed the wording on this site - it now replaces the word VICTIM with TARGET.  All this does folks is prove the midset of the MainStreamMedia.]

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In other news, I feel another letter to the editor in me based on my limited attendance (had to leave early) at the Legislative forum this morning at MCC. There were 3 republicans and 2 democrats in attendance (our full delegation representing the general area of Muscatine County).

The spin in the hour I was there made me dizzy. The democrats referencing the budget, etc. used the words “good shape”, republicans noted a 400 million dollar shortfall on revenue versus spending and voiced concern.  Even one of the democrats joked that we had a right to assume these people on the panel did not attend the same session.

Nathan Reickert waxed eloquently about an Energy Bill he was authoring and how it can bring business to our state.  My mind wandered to one of my favorite movies of the 1990′s THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT. The premise (romantic comedy) was about a US President’s romance with a lobbyist trying to push an energy bill through Congress. The movie is a vailed insult to republicans, but I’m a sucker for snappy dialog and a happy ending.

OK Back to the forum.  One of the first questions, asked each legislator to speak clearly yes or no on their support for or against the Fair Share Bill as it currently sets in committee.  In the Forum last month, it was clear Nate sat on the fence, and was the only one on that fence.  Three Republicans were clearly against the bill, and the one remaining Democrat was enthusiasticly supporting the bill that would kill RIGHT TO WORK in Iowa. 

Senator Courtney took the mic and sounded offended by the question and started to berate the person for asking the question.  He went on and on to explain how clear he was last forum (me: how about saying I support the bill and pass the mic Tom).  It seemed like he tried to intimidate anyone else from speaking against the bill.  Unfortunately it worked on me – looking around, the crowd was clearly partisan democrat.

I had no stomach then, to ask Nate the question “How do you explain the dichotomy of your excitement of bringing new wind plants to Iowa, versus the solid statements of two businessmen at the last forum saying they would not have located in Iowa if RIGHT TO WORK had not been applicable to Iowa law?  How can you not clearly state that you will not support this bill that will effectively repeal this law?”

Nate is very careful in his use of words.  He says his two “tipping points” (my words not his) are 1) will current workers lose their jobs?  2) would the bill repeal the RIGHT TO WORK law on the books today.  sounds good, right?

But in his closing sentence – he said if it would repeal the law he would “probably” vote against it.  “probably”.  you go guy.  means nothing to me and proves the questioner’s point.  (BTW Nate never replied to my email last month)