Posts Tagged editorial
Issue 5 + Issue 6 = New Cuyahoga County Commissioners
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Media, Politicians on October 13, 2009
October 13, 2009… Memo to Susan Goldberg, Plain Dealer editor: Stop making the news and start reporting it.
Today it was “economic development” again as the Pee Dee attributed nonsensical advantages to Issue 6, which, of course, the Pee Dee strongly backs. It’s a supposed County reform issue that has too many holes in it. Big holes.
Eliminating elective functioning offices – sheriff, treasurer, recorder, and auditor – except the County Prosecutor is an invitation to a king-maker position for Bill Mason, present prosecutor and prime mover of Issue 6. Mason doesn’t deserve the promotion.
It just doesn’t make sense. It isn’t reform. It’s merely change. Not good enough.
Also, will Ms. Goldberg please announced what the final vote total of the Pee Dee editorial board on endorsing Issue 3 favoring monopoly casinos? Let’s have a little of that transparency editors are always talk about. Because I can’t see how the editorial board – knowing its make-up – voted for a monopoly casino issue. I was told the vote was “close.”
I believe Goldberg pulled a Machaskee. If you remember the Pee Dee couldn’t come up with a Presidential endorsement because the board wanted John Kerry but then Publisher Alex Machaskee wanted George Bush. In that contest, nobody won but the Pee Dee lost as it was revealed publicly – and embarrassingly – that the Pee Dee would endorse no one. One publisher trumps the voting board.
So I suspect that Goldberg also trumped the staff.
Anyway, today the Pee Dee gives a major Page One headline for a story that tries to suggest that voting for Issue 6 means you are voting for economic development. Please! There is no substantive evidence that this is true or even near true.
It does, however, give Issue 6 another push. That’s the purpose.
I’m not for either Issue 5 – a dodge engineered by Democrats and Labor – or Issue 6, a choice that EXPANDS not reforms Cuyahoga County government by giving us 11 County Commissioners. Oh, I know they aren’t called Commissioners. But that’s what they’ll think they are.
It is a measure that will end up dividing the county into fiefdoms. That’s something we just don’t need. Can you imagine more than one pompous Tim Hagan?
So remember if you vote YES on 6, no matter what you do with 5, you’re still going to get 11. Eleven new politicians to support. And that’s the truth.
Is Larkin Still Setting Plain Dealer Editorial Stance?
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media, People, Politicians on September 29, 2009
September 29, 2009… Did anyone else notice the difference in tone, style and content between two Plain Dealer columnists on Sunday speaking about the dilemma of the Ohio state budget?
I did.
Larkin zeroed in on Gov. Ted Strickland for the financial mess – $1 billion shortfall – in Columbus using strikingly different language than long-time State House watcher Tom Suddes.
Larkin rapped Strickland with such wording as “breathtaking ineptitude” and depending on legal advice from the firm of “Barnum & Bailey” and describing Strickland’s attempt to balance the budget with slots as “pathetic performance,” something I might join with him.
Descriptive language but hardly even-handed. Particularly when you consider Larkin was the PD editorial boss during the truly pathetic Taft years.
Larkin even had the nerve to contrast Strickland with former Gov. Bob Taft, citing a job producing effort. I guess Larkin hasn’t noticed that jobs pour out not into Ohio in gusher style under Taft. Here’s Larkin’s take:
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/09/gov_strickland_is_sinking_fast.html
Suddes rapped Strickland, too, after the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling that the slots issue had to go to the voters.
However, Suddes noted that the court ruling didn’t “only” put Strickland, as he put it, “behind the eight ball.” Here’s Suddes’s take:
“But people of both parties need to start behaving like adults. Both Strickland and his foes seem to be thinking only of their political prospects. They need to be thinking instead – and jointly – about the prospects of 11 million Ohioans. Because even without the court’s decision, the national economic and the human-service demands it fuels made Ohio’s budget as rickety as a 2-year old taxi,” wrote Suddes.
That’s putting it into the correct perspective.
In other words, a plague on both your houses, says Suddes. Larkin, meanwhile, strikes only at Strickland.
Both Larkin, recently retired, and Suddes, an instructor at Ohio University and a member of the PD editorial board, are no longer at the paper. Suddes was a statehouse reporter for the PD.
Larkin, former boss of the PD editorial page, got much better play than Suddes. Larkin’s unbalanced attack – Headlined: “Flailing Strickland is sinking fast” – took up much of the PD’s Forum front page including a 13 by 8 inch cartoon of the governor.
Even more contrasting to the Larkin column, former governor, now U. S. Senator George Voinovich, yesterday met with the PD editorial staff and urged Republican to help Strickland solve the very serious money problem facing the state AND its people.
Voinovich rightly urged Ohio Senate President Bill Harris, as the PD’s Mark Naymik put it, to “begin working with Strickland on the state’s budget revenue shortfall.” Naymik’s story got poor display in this a.m. Metro pages. It can be found here: http://www.cleveland.com/naymik/index.ssf/2009/09/us_sen_george_voinovich_urges.html
Larkin should have read his own newspaper to find out that Harris and the Republicans can certainly share in the fiscal problem Ohio faces.
In a piece last November, Harris, a former banker-small businessman, sent what the PD called “an empathic message” to Strickland: “Don’t even think about messing with previous Republican-passed tax cuts.” Republicans control the State Senate.
Voinovich, to his credit, suggested that Strickland, with Harris and the Republicans, rescind the final year of a five-year 21 percent income tax cut forced by the Republicans in 2005 as one possible solution to the budget shortfall.
Democrats fear doing anything that even has the odor of a tax increase because they expect Republicans will yell and scream about tax increases.
That’s a correct assumption unless it is a bi-partisan tax cut.
The alternative is that Ohioans, particularly those without jobs or with special needs, will suffer – that is, suffer even more.
Larkin’s one-sided viewing of this important issue is detrimental to its solution. It also is putting the Plain Dealer – because of his former position – editorially in a box.
The question is: Who is the editorial boss now? Is it still Larkin or is it his successor, Betsy Sullivan.
It’s time that decision was made.