The only local editorialist that The Columbian prints, other than members of their editorial board, is one Ann Donnelly, a former county GOP chair. Today she really stepped in poo by making the usual conservative mistake of projection, applying her own limited experiences to the Democratic Party.
In a column promoting the upcoming February Republican precinct caucuses, Donnelly first makes an egregious error of fact by stating both parties will hold them this year.
On Saturday, Feb. 13, in school libraries and other public venues around Clark County, both political parties will hold caucuses open to all registered voters, who with a smidgen of research can determine their voting precincts and assigned meeting places.
Speaking of research, a cursory Google by Donnelly would have revealed that Democrats have decided to eschew the lightly attended precinct caucuses in favor of starting the process in March with legislative district caucuses. That’s some pretty bad journalamism, and some pretty lazy and inept punditry.
But that’s just mechanical stuff. The real outrage comes later in Donnelly’s column, where she makes a baseless jump equating the actions of Ron Paul supporters in 2008 with the actions of Obama supporters the same year.
Meanwhile, at the 2008 Democratic caucuses, I’m told that raucous Obama supporters caused similar havoc for Hillary Clinton supporters, thus eventually enabling a far-left national movement led by a largely unknown candidate with an enticing slogan to defeat a more centrist, experienced candidate. It will be interesting to see if Clark County Democrats achieve a mid-course correction in their caucuses this year.
As you may imagine, that’s just complete bullshit, and a picture-perfect example of conservative projection. Some crazy Ron Paul people hassled her in 2008, so they are the same as Obama people. Geebus.
I was at the Democratic county convention here in 2008, as well as my local precinct caucuses, and Donnelly is flat out uninformed or lying. There were no disruptions on the Democratic side, no havoc and nothing out of the ordinary other than massive numbers of ordinary citizens doing ordinary caucus things. You know, cheering when a chance arises (for all candidates,) being bored, wondering about lunch, buying trinkets, etc.
So while it’s not a surprise that a conservative would tell “projection-lies” about Democrats, the real concern is that The Columbian thinks it’s okay to print such lies, and that it’s okay to give a former GOP chair a weekly local column while offering no alternative local viewpoint.
Frankly, it’s kind of hard to believe that in a county of over 400,000 people they can’t find anyone on the Democratic side to write 700 words of bullshit per week, which is what Donnelly does. Hell, I used to write 700 words of bullshit per hour, before I entered my recent fallow-sanguine period.
We’ve got a big Congressional race down here in WA-03, and until the Democratic Party and other interested allies decide to make The Columbian an issue, we’re fighting with at least one hand tied behind our backs.
There are local folks responding to this crap, and The Columbian will likely print letters and one-time responses, but if The Columbian is going to operate as a small-time Fox Noise outlet, the race in WA-03 is going to be that much tougher. Portland media doesn’t cover us much, and Seattle media just doesn’t reach people here, despite the Internet Tubes. Lots of folks commute to and from Portland, and it leads to a fairly low-information voting populace overall.
A thought I want to get out there is this: just because a bunch of mouth-breathing, Fox-Noise watching morons harass The Columbian on a daily basis does not make The Columbian a liberal outlet. It just means the right yells louder, and has a sympathetic local publisher.
Columbian reporters are not the enemy, of course, because they aren’t writing editorials and columns. But if we want to hold this seat The Columbian and its bizarre editorial arrangements are a huge challenge, frankly nearly as important as which candidate emerges as the nominee.
Hmmm…”projection lies”, what a great term!
It aptly describes a fair amount of the anti-progressive utterances coming from the mouths and pens of wingnutbaggers.
So Goldy, now you understand the conservative concern about the overwhelming pro-democrat media bias in this country. (For reference, 2 reporters in Chicago looking into candidate Obama, 30 in Wasilla looking into candidate Palin and I could go on.)
Good, now I assume you’ll be writing a scathing article about that next because you’re basically an intellectually honest person, right?
@2
Flailing at false comparisons. And I don’t know where you got your “2 reporters in Chicago” as the Tribune (parent of L.A. Times, Orlando Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and a host of others) employs a fairly large number of reporters, several of them were presumably covering the “Local” running for president and feeding their stories to AP, Reuters, Tribune holdings, etc.
But where your “comparison” really breaks down starts when you ponder the difference between Candidate Obama in 2008 and Candidate Palin in 2008. One had given a keynote speech at a National convention (and had tons of background pieces published the day after), one had run successfully for national office and had both national and state level media looking deeply into his background during that race. One had been running for the highest office in the nation for over a year and had an army of reporters following his every move. The other was Governor of a state that is largely ignored by the lower 48. On that day in September that Palin is announced as the nominee, how much did the legacy national press know about her? Pretty much that she is named Sarah Palin and she’s the Governor. So send a bunch of reporters to do the basic background work that we’ve done on Obama over the last 2-3 years. And do it quick, needs to be finished by early November and really it should be finished before her first debate.
Yes you can argue that the media should be more up on the goings on in Alaska than they are but I don’t buy that’s bias so much as not much of vital national importance goes on up there. Big national political movements born in Alaska? Hasn’t happened. New Legislation that sweeps the nation originating in Alaska? Well they did decriminalize Pot in 1975.
So you can cite the 30-2 made-up stat but you’re an intelligent (so it would seem) troll. You know it’s a bogus complaint. Thanks for bringing up intellectual honesty.
2 L
Aw, you’re so cute when you’re stupid. Let’s look at the facts (I know it’s painful and objectionable):
Barack Obama became a national figure in 2004 when he defeated the formidable Alan Keyes (yes, I’m laughing right now) for the US Senate seat from Illinois and for delivering his electrifying speech at the Democratic National Convention that year. By late 2008, he had been ruinning for president for at least 18 months (he announced his candidacy in February 2007).
Sarah Palin was completely unknown in the lower 48 when she was mistakenly selected (yes, I am laughing about that one too) as John McCain’s Vice Presidental candidate 10 weeks before the 2008 election.
In addition, there was the Monegan investigation and other ethics investigations going on.
And you’re wondering why more reporters were looking into Sarah Palin’s background in late 2008? Have you always had a problem seeing the obvious?
Damn you @ 3!
I think her candidacy was announced in late August 2008 (Wikipedia).
But I am still laughing at Sarah.
My 2008 caucuses in WA-08 were models of calm reflection and orderly voting. And that is true even though we had overflow crowds at the caucus location. The aging Boomer women who love Hillary so gave us some long-ish talks as to why they like her, and then we voted for Obama.
@2 What “overwhelming pro-democrat media bias” are you referring to, sweetie? All I see in the media is sycophants sucking up to the political biases of the very rich, very conservative, white guys who own all the media. Even formerly centrist press lackeys are selling their souls for a paycheck.
Jon, keep things in perspective. Remember what most people use newspapers for.
http://i.ehow.com/images/a05/f.....00X200.jpg
@7
To steal a bit from Jon Stewart, perhaps lost could get on The David Bose show and complain about the lack of conservative media outlets. Then he could get on Morning Joe and complain about the lack of conservative media outlets. After that he could stop by Fox and Friends and complain about the lack of conservative media outlets. Then he could call in to either of the Laura’s and complain about the lack of conservative media outlets. Take a few minutes to write a letter to the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Washington Times or Seattle Times editorial page to complain about the lack of conservative media outlets. I hear Michael Medved has an open slot this afternoon. That would be a good time to complain about the lack of conservative media outlets.
Re 9 et al
I’m sure that you’re intelligent enough to know that most of the ‘media outlets’ to which you refer aren’t. Rachel Maddow and that Schultz guy aren’t either. They are entertainment and will say whatever needs said to boost ratings, whether ranting from the left or the right.
As far as Fox goes I don’t watch it. Nor do I watch MSNBC. Partly this is because I don’t own a television. Mostly it’s because I don’t believe that propaganda masking as journalism is worth my time. Fox comes closer to real news than MSNBC, but is still a mouthpiece for a political point of view.
And it’s the political point of view that Obama decided was beneath him. I guess his only constituency is the far left in this country and everyone else isn’t his concern.
Re 9
Forgot something. Isn’t it interesting that Air America and MSNBC are struggling to survive while all the talk shows you mention and Fox News are doing well. This might give more thoughtful people something to think about with respect to where America really is politically.
Uhhhh….lost?
Radio isn’t a medium? And while we’re at it you stumbled on another false conservative meme. MSNBC is not struggling to survive. It’s actually doing quite well from an income to expense standpoint and several of their shows are generating great ratings for cable only outlets. Would you say USA Network is struggling? Is the History Channel struggling? Is the Food Network struggling? They all air shows that are viewed by fewer people than some of the shows on MSNBC.
Air America is a bad business model. Station ownership is less profitable than syndication. Those that started the network didn’t have a radio background. The network may not survive but some of the shows they’ve jettisoned were picked up by syndicators and continue to operate and are even carried on some Air America stations. Ed Schultz radio gets better ratings than Hannity in a lot of key markets. And it’s done by a syndicator not Air America.
That’s the secret to media. If people are watching, advertisers will buy. If advertisers buy, the shows will air. Urging Fox News to drop Glen Beck is pointless. The show is watched, the advertisers buy. Demanding MSNBC dump Olberman, also pointless. Targeting the advertisers can work if they get enough complaints and their own sales slip so they pull ads. If even the Godlike Limbaugh grows to 100 million daily listeners but becomes so toxic that national advertisers won’t buy, the show ends.
@10 “I guess his only constituency is the far left in this country and everyone else isn’t his concern.”
I would argue that his constituency is the entire country, and that he wants to be the president of all the people, even those who disagree with him, many of whom will personally benefit from his health care reforms.
But, at a minimum, in any event his constituency is the 69,498,215 Americans who voted for him.
@11 Bumper sticker slogans always sell to the masses better than analysis that demands knowledge and effort from listeners.
Did you read the Heck announcement article. http://www.columbian.com/news/.....sional-run Durbin says Williams is a possible candidate and we know he decided not to run two weeks ago she goes on to say “if Heck runs” when we all know he’s already in. Previouse article I can no longer find link to has bairds name where Heck should be in dicribeing Hecks business expierence. Worse reporting. I agree the Columbian is not the enimy, just a crappy tool for an important job.
here it is. http://www.columbian.com/news/.....-congress/
This deserves a What The Fuck?