The
Ontario Republican notes that the recent
Democrat and Chronicle Op-Ed on S-CHIP, signed by two Rochester Labor leaders, is boilerplate that's appeared in a number of other newspapers.
The issue here isn't the content of the letter, or the fact that it's boilerplate: talking points are talking points, and I'm sure the labor guys who signed the letter weren't the first ones to try to slip one by the editors at the D&C. The issue is the blind reprint of the letter as an op-ed by an editorial board that is constantly trumpeting its high journalistic standards. I thought the Republican put it well:
Now, question to the D&C
Editorial Board: Is it your policy to publish cut and paste editorials,
or is it too hard to do a simple Google search to verify whether the
content of the editorial you have hasn't been published elsewhere?