Ontario GOP has a couple of comments in
last night's post, alleging media bias in the 29th district. I invite anyone who thinks that might be true to engage in the following mental experiment:
Imagine that your least-favorite Congressional Democrat (Louise Slaughter, Brian Higgins, whoever) went on a Congressional junket somewhere you think he or she has no business going.
When you're looking through the media coverage of that trip, which would you prefer:
- A series of stories that examine every detail of the trip, questioning the stated purpose, and showing that your least-favorite Democrat was giving the press the run-around, and that his or her expense report probably understated the real cost of the trip.
- A story that re-prints Brian or Louise's press release about the trip without questioning it.
- A local press that completely ignores the trip, because the trip wasn't a lot of money and there are more important things to discuss.
I want (1). While I don't agree with (3) completely, I understand that the press sometimes tends to focus on minutiae while ignoring the big picture. What I don't get is (2), which is apparently what some Kuhl supporters expect from the local press.
Comments
In a way, this doesn't required that much of an experiment. Most of the delegation, including the leader of the delegation, were Democrats. And since Democrats now control Congress, most of the committees and agencies involved with the stonewalling here were presumably run by Democrats.
As a Democrat, that doesn't affect my belief that the public is entitled to know how much the whole thing costs. Nor does it give me any confidence that I should trust Kuhl and the other members of the delegation when they claim the trip served a valuable purpose.