Media

The Wall Street Journal opines feebly on the Missouri Non-partisan Court Plan:

Though the Missouri Plan is supposed to keep politics out of the process, it has instead transferred power from voters to state bar associations and legal groups that control the judicial commission....

Mr. Blunt has said he's committed to filling the open seat with a judge "who will faithfully interpret our constitution and not legislate from the bench." That's a request the commission could easily have met with such highly qualified options as former U.S. Attorney Stephen Easton or well-respected lawyer Brenda Talent.

The WSJ apparently believes we can "keep politics out" of the judicial selection process by nominating a judge whose only distinguishing qualification for the job is her marriage to a prominent Republican politician.  Genius.­  

­So long as reporters are writing about Republican partisans claiming to be happy about the outcomes of certain Democratic primaries they should go ahead and write about the Democrats who are happy about who came out on top in the big Missouri GOP primary.

Here's a specific tip: Missouri Democrats were elated when Kenny Hulshof barely held off a charge from Sarah Steelman and won the gubernatorial nomination by a handful of points a week ago.  Though either Republican nominee would ultimately be defeated, Hasselhoff's Hulshof's primary victory allows Democratic nominee Jay Nixon to run against a candidate that's far easier to beat in a general election.  Here's why:­

It seems Dave Catanese of KY3 and Christopher Ave of the Post-Dispatch are confused by the substantive difference between job approval ratings and favorability ratings.

First, Catanese had a blogpost on Thursday that conflated Blunt's personal favorability rating with his job approval rating --incorrectly translating Rich Chrismer's sales job about the fact that 47% of respondents in a SurveyUSA poll think favorably of Matt Blunt into 47% "approval" of Blunt.

Shorter Hank Waters:

Missouri Democrats are disingenuous about wanting to restore coverage to those cut by Matt Blunt from Medicaid because the Republican-controlled legislature will never let them do it.

There's too much wrong with Jo Mannies' ridiculously incomplete, inept and credulous coverage of the Peter Kinder/Better Leadership for Missouri scam to allow a comprehensive description in one sitting.  So let's focus on one piece in particular for now: the absurd explanation by Paul Sloca for why Better Leadership for Missouri has been paying Peter Kinder's campaign rent.

Among the Democrats' examples: Kinder hasn't reported paying rent since he paid $2,400 in December to the J. Harris Company, operated by GOP consultant James Harris.

Better Leadership's latest reports show rent payments of $3,960 to Harris' company. ...

Kinder hasn't paid rent in six months, said Sloca, because he's waiting for a bill from the Missouri Republican Party, which handles the payments for the building where his campaign is currently situated.

If this is the best Sloca can do, no committee should be paying to guy to do "communications."  Folks may remember that this illegitimate line of reasoning is the same one used by Matt Blunt when it was revelead that his campaign had accepted unreported and illegal in-kind contributions from Mike Kehoe in the form of a campaign bus:­

The Republican candidates for Governor haven't highlighted the issue of health care access because they don't care whether coverage expands or not.  They are fine with the health care access backsliding fostered by the Blunt administration and the current levels of uninsured Missourians.­

Hello from the Netroots Nation (NN) Convention, www.netrootsnation.org! NN is, a group of bloggers and technology gurus, that provides a venue for a conversation on issues that are important to changing our nation.

This morning we heard from Vice President Al Gore and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Together, they are providing insight into the change that this country desires.

I'm not sure if this blogpost from the Primebuzz was an earnest attempt at reportage or a brilliant effort at satire, but however it was intended I certainly hope we see more of it.  Either way, the post perfectly encapsulates the prevailing media attitude toward John McCain's candidacy.  

It would be hard to come up with a put-on more convincingly intended to skewer maintream coverage of McCain than a post entitled "McCain's rally impressed me" which lauds the septuagenarian Senator's Kansas City campaign event because no violent factional melees broke out in the audience:

 ...rallies in my own country are often attended by far more people than what I saw at the Union Station. There is also no vetting of those who attend the meetings, a practice that, sometimes, allows criminals to enter the rally venues with crude weapons.  In some cases, supporters clash at such rallies.

A serious question for members of the Kansas City media...

Will you let John McCain's flunkies line up your shots for you when the septuagenarian comes to town for a townhall meeting at Union Station?

We know that many in the mainstream political commentariat share a perverse affection for McCain, but allowing the man's people to set up shots for them seems a tad flockish even for those who regularly practice the pack mentality.

In a story on the Jetton-Kinder ethics showdown, Rosenbaum writes...

Barklage noted that Kinder never agreed to hire Jetton and had had no idea whether he would have. A spokesman for Kinder said the first-term lawmaker would not have hired Jetton.

Ouch! From statewide elected office to freshman legislator in the space of one sentence.  Of course, we should be so lucky.­ 

Is there such a thing as a "documentary cartoonist"?  In case anyone missed this Sunday's Doonesbury, here it is:  Story Continued »

Hank Waters today makes the increasingly common mistake of suggesting "accurate" ballot summary language is synonymous with "ballot summary language that portrays the initiative in the way I'd portray it."

Difficult as this may be to believe, nowhere do the statutes require that ballot summary language be crafted to reflect Hank Waters' eccentric worldview.

This evening, bestselling author and nationally syndicated columnist David Sirota will visit St. Louis to discuss his newest book, THE UPRISING: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street & Washington.   The event will be held at 7pm at Left Bank Books (399 N. Euclid, St. Louis, MO.) at Euclid and McPherson in the Central West End.

Sirota, a longtime Congressional committee advisor to Wisconsin Democrat Dave Obey and consultant to Dem Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, has a new book that looks at populism on both the Right and Left and how it is shaping American politics. 

David Sirota will join State Senator Jeff Smith at a reading, Q&A and book signing sponsored by Fired Up Missouri, the Young Democrats, the Midwest Coalition for Responsible Investment and the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition.