Wednesday, November 24, 2004on AOL, from AP:Despite Gaping Deficits, Budget Bill Packed With PorkThis wouldn't be happening if the Republicans were in charge! Er... Unfortunately, pork-barrel spending is a time-honored tradition, even if there is no other honor in it. I see, among other things, that the Democratic senators from Michigan are boasting about getting a public transportation program set up in Traverse City. Whoopee! While I seem to scoff, I am concerned. Republicans always decry this sort of thing, but we've had pretty significant power for some years now. What's going on? Well, there's an easy answer, and a good Republican one: Blame the media! The other day, dapper Dan Rather stepped down, and it's about time. But that's not before he launched multiple hatchet jobs on Bush, including one with phony documents. Over the past six months, if a soldier died in Iraq, it got six inch high type across the front of the Times and a special segment on at least one of the nets. And if a thousand Iraqis were trained for jobs that would enable them to take back control of their country? A short write-up in the New York Post was the most that could be hoped for. Because successes in Iraq weren't fit to print. Bottom line: During the Reagan years, Ronald Reagan went over the press's heads, projecting his message directly to the people in a way that filled Democrat reps' and senators' mailbags with angry letters. And bound by some sense of fair play, the media played his stuff anyway. He was the president and if he said something it was therefore newsworthy. But since the Contract with America, the media hasn't fallen for the trap. Republicans giving press conferences - even presidents, senate leaders and speakers of the House, have been relegated to cable, and increasingly to Fox news. The war, in one sense, has been very healthy - it finally made a national election, at least, about issues. But in local elections, it's still been hard to get ideology into the races. Yes, the intense partisans are very much driven by ideology, but the vast bovine middle that doesn't know quite where it stands, that votes for the person, not the politics, must be won if elections are to be won. The question is whether the Republicans, with renewed power, will at least make the effort. If press conferences are given, papers are issued and stirring speeches are offered, but it takes a google search to find out about them, don't blame the Republicans for pork-barrel politics. Blame the media! 
posted by gbarto at 8:02 AM |
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