this morning anchor Dimitri Sotis was interviewing Sen. Byron Dorgan, who’s been demagoguing the gas price issue. I don’t know if he’s pissed because he filled up on the way into work this morning, but Sotis stepped completely out of character to fawn over Dorgan’s efforts to “do something” about high gas prices. “The government is supposed to help people,” Sotis pled. “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?”
After the interview, Sotis said with exasperation of Dorgan, “Well at least he’s trying. It’s about time someone tried to do something.”
Sotis and his co-anchor then reported four straight stories of government failure, including the failure of U.S. diplomats in Pakistan to properly gage that country’s terror threat, outdated and useless computer software at the FBI, delays and cancellations in Maryland’s mass transit program that forced the state to apologize to commuters, and a story about how the Virginia Lottery has been misrepresenting its payoffs to customers.
Blows my mind how media people report on government failure after government failure after government failure, then still enthusiastically embrace the idea that the solution to every problem is more government.
--Radley Balko
While we're here: I listen to about five minutes of Rush Limbaugh every month or two. This time he was being sarcastic about Barack Obama's "clinched the nomination" speech and its references to the point at which America started to ensure jobs, health care, etc. Limbaugh claimed that LBJ must be rolling in his grave.
I see the point he was trying to make but I don't think the way to tear down Obama is to give LBJ undue credit for programs that have been spectacular failures given how much money they've cost.
(Yes, I'll readily acknowledge the strong argument that the Iraq War could also be so described.)
Posted by Matt Bruce at June 10, 2008 10:26 PM