Reader Rich sends a
Letter to the Editor [pdf] from the Finger Lake Times about Randy Kuhl's trip to Brazil. Written by the mother of a page nominated by Kuhl intern in Kuhl's office, it says that earlier letters criticizing Kuhl's trip were "mean and wrong".
No, the
congressman didn't travel by private jet, stay at a 5-star hotel,
spend time at the pool or beach. You don't have to take my word for
it, check for yourself. Congressman Kuhl's office will be
happy to supply you with the real facts.
I don't know if Kuhl spent time by the beach, but he did take a private (military) jet, and his itinerary shows that he stayed in a number of five-star hotels.
Another variation on this theme can be seen in the Steuben Young Republican blog post
Respect for Randy. The post has a couple of videos showing the slings and arrows launched at Randy: "Take a look at this town hall meeting Randy held in Branchport. He had
to sit there and listen to more than 5 minutes of attacks." It sounded like five minutes of gentle questioning to me.
There's something a little disturbing about the version of "respect" being peddled in these two examples. Randy Kuhl is a politician, and everything he says and does should be questioned closely by his constituents, the press, and any other interested party. There's nothing disrespectful about doing that, and it should happen more often, not less.
Update: Meghan Tisinger of Kuhl's office wrote to say the following:
FYI…the editorial in The Finger Lakes Times was written by the mother of a page that Randy appointed. The page did not work/intern for us. All pages work for the Speaker’s office.
I've corrected the post. Here's a
Wikipedia article about pages.
Comments
Regarding the letter in the Finger Lakes Times: this woman's husband (who is the part time Yates county public defender, attorney for the village of Penn Yan, and attorney for several local townships) has also written letters in support of Randy Kuhl which have been published in local newspapers. In all instances the fact that this couple’s daughter works for Kuhl ought to have been disclosed with an editor's comment - and it wasn’t.
Kuhl's more energetic defenders have to realize that the junket was politically stupid.
Some on the other side have to stop treating this like it is enough by itself to elect Eric Massa.
Unless I misunderstood who wrote the letter, The Finger Lakes Times had no businesses identifying the woman who wrote the letter as being married to a Kuhl supporter. Many married couples can support different candidates and marriage alone is not enough to warrant a special mention.
Elmer it was more than being married to a Kuhl supporter - it is being the mother of someone who is employed by Kuhl and works in his office. I do indeed think that relationship ought to be disclosed. Also, Elmer, nobody made any mention of Eric Massa.
Anne -
I just mentioned Massa in regards to the whole incident in general, not the letter in particular.
Also, I still wouldn’t have printed the tie between mother and daughter. The only people who should be mentioned would be people who are directly on a candidate’s payroll, are independent contractors doing work for the candidate or actually related to the candidate.
Elmer, I bow to your superior knowledge of the current standards in newspapers, but I think the more transparency, the better.
That said, I'll bet the vast majority of FLTimes readers already know exactly who she his. Small towns are that way.
Transparency is a good thing, and it is achieved here just by the tone of the letter. If someone can't figure out that the writer is a partisan supporter of Kuhl's, they should not be allowed to vote. Relationships don't always matter. My dad is democrat through and through, and wouldn't write a letter in support of Kuhl even if I worked for Randy. All you democrats would just love my father.
Interesting discussion of transparency issues. For me, I have more of a problem when the letter writer pretends to be neutral. In this case, Elmer is right that it's clear she's a partisan.
I tend to think maybe they should have identified her but that it's not a big deal because her sentiments were so strongly partisan.