…today’s headline is “Dubie presses Shumlin on Corrections.”
Apparently my answer to the question “Will the Free Press coverage of the election be all about vapid surface assessments? is yes.
To be fair, however, the piece itself is a bit more fair than the headline suggests, but it creates this sense that the debate was hostile and bitter, such as with this paragraph:
The continuing dispute over Shumlin’s Corrections plan highlights an increasingly bristly relationship between the candidates that arose several times during the 90-minute debate… Shumlin said Dubie wasn’t telling the truth in a Corrections ad he is airing. Dubie lashed out about an advertisement by an outside group that criticizes his stance on the future of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
While technically accurate as far as what was said goes, the debate was, as with all the debates so far, cordial, polite and reasonable. They disagree, fairly strongly, but no one is being nasty. No one is being hostile. They are sticking to their positions and their points of view.
We’re having good debates that do not debase the candidates. Why do we have to pretend otherwise?
I’ve already posted a comment regarding that in this thread so I won’t repeat.
But suffice it to say:
VERMONT LAW DEFINES CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS AS VIOLENT CRIMINALS!
(You paying attention Teri?)
Watching the new Dubie “Willie Horton, Katie Bar The Door” ad and the very serious announcer says “Shumlin will fire 300 corrections officers.” Yeah, I don’t think I’ve heard or read Shumlin say this. I guess Dubie’s junta can now just project its perception on to Shumlin and then call it Shumlin’s own? We get it. You want to be slimy and mislead folks. We expect that from you Brother Dubie, but even you know better in this case.
Don’t believe me about Shumlin’s plan? Ask Dick Sears or Con Hogan.
Today’s BFP editorial contains the following sentence:
“Still, no one expects a union boss to deliver his members’ votes to the designated candidate.”
The term union boss is used by right-wing dolts to paint union ELECTED leaders as totalitarian, which I’m quite sure the writer of this finely crafted piece knows. Wonder if s/he ever belonged to the Writers’ Union? Guessing not.
Journalists (good ones anyway) should know better.