WhackyNation’s eminently whacky Mark Gardner accuses me of “smearing” Assistant State Treasurer Allan Martin, by describing him as a licensed mortician. But… um… Martin is a licensed mortician:
Martin, 54, is a former funeral director who says he has kept his license current for doing funerals and embalming.
Because as State Treasurer, you never know when that might come in handy.
Ironically, in his zeal to brand me as unworthy of serving in a profession that includes such beacons of journalistic integrity as Michael Savage, G. Gordon Liddy and Bill O’Reilly, Gardner overlooked a genuine factual error in my original post, that could actually rise to the level of constituting a “smear” had I known the information to be incorrect. But since the error concerned one of the Democrats in the race, Gardner apparently couldn’t give a shit.
In my post I pointed out that the name of the state’s chief economist, Dr. ChangMook Sohn, appears as a signatory to an online petition from the libertarian Cato Institute, calling for Social Security privatization, and technically, this true — Dr. Sohn’s name does appear on the petition. But Dr. Sohn assures me via email that he has “never signed or been asked to sign a petition to privatize Social Security,” and has no idea how his name got on the Cato petition. Furthermore, when asked specifically about his stance on the issue, Dr. Sohn writes:
As a principle, I do not comment on the Federal government policy issues. I am a state government official. As a private citizen, however, I oppose Social Security privatization. Given its expected negative cash flow situation within 10 years, the overhaul of the current system is inevitable, I believe.
I raised the issue in the first place because Social Security privatization doesn’t strike me as a Democratic value, and I am pleased to clarify that Dr. Sohn does not support it. I have contacted the Cato Institute, asking them to explain how Dr. Sohn’s name came to be attached to their petition, but have yet to receive a reply.
As for Martin, if he wants to send me an email denying that he is a licensed mortician, I’d be happy to post that correction as well.
in his zeal to brand me as unworthy of serving in a profession that includes such beacons of journalistic integrity as Michael Savage,
That’s too funny. Good one!
These right wingers are such clowns!
Goldy:
Can’t you be more like or President and never admit a mistake?
I can’t stand you humble liberals who actually make corrections and admit mistakes. then again – if you were always right – you wouldn’t be correct.
that would be “our President”
Of course – the u has been missing from Bush for a long time – it all about me and the coporations that me likes.
What I want to know is, where are the bodies buried in the Treasurer’s office? heeee
Mark Gardner sure has a lot of spare time on his hands.
Republicans Get Dirty
I see in the news the GOP frontrunners have descended to name-calling of the filthiest kind: Romney and McCain called each other “liberals.”
The Cato Institute is libertarian. They believe in liberty. Therefore, they have taken liberty with Dr. Sohn’s name. I think that is as good an explanation as you’re going to get, yessiree.
It may get even worse — soon they’ll be calling each other “Republicans.”
Dear Goldy
Have you been notified by the Pulitzer folks yet?
If not, please expect same very very quickly.
Dear goldy,
Too bad you already have a full-time job pointing out republican hypocrisy. It takes all day just to keep track of the inept, corrupt and lying republicans.
Hope you keep your (day) night job.
I’m pretty sure what he was objecting to was the fact that Goldy failed to meniotn that Martin is the Assistant State Treasurer, which means that he actually runs the day to day business of the Treasurers office. He’s also the former Chelan County Commissioner.
It wasn’t so much what you wrote Goldy, it’s what you didn’t write. Martin is extremely qualified to be State Treasurer and you made it seem like he was some random mortician.
Phil @11,
This is what I wrote about the three candidates:
One brief sentence to each candidate’s bio. Granted, the mortician reference was dryly snarky, but it was also interesting, and I did describe Martin as Murphy’s “top aide.” That is what assistant secretary’s are.
And this is what Gardner considers a smear, worthy of denying me my livelihood?
For the record the spelling of the Democrat running for State Treasurer is Jim McIntire not McIntyre.
You can visit his website at http://jimmcintire.com/index.php
Goldy,
He’s not his secretary, he’s the number 2 guy in the State Treasury department and had to be appointed to the job. He’s the one who runs the thing daily, and before that he was the top guy in a county treasury department. He’s extremely well-qualified.
You described McIntyre very positively, but with Martin you just made that snarky comment about being a mortician and glossed over how qualified the man is. I’ll still vote for McIntyre of course, but Martin would certainly do a fine job.
Gardner was of course overreacting because he doesn’t know any other way and he’s a douchebag, but I think his underlying point that you weren’t giving the full picture of Martin was correct.
The economy may be an issue in the Treasurer’s race. Allan Martin can boast that he has placed hundreds of people in secure positions.
Goldy, you can only dream of being in the same league as Bill, Michael or G.
It takes few more kohones (SP?) to actually be syndicated with a few million vs. a few thousand people paying attention.
Danno @16,
It takes time as well as cohones. I’ve only been doing radio for 20 months.