Say Anything Blog

Is it customary for newspaper editors to use their editorial pages to carry out personal vendettas against political candidates?  Apparently it’s customary for Fargo Forum opinion editor Jack Zaleski who, fresh off branding state tax activist and soon-to-be Republican House candidate Duane Sand as a “fringe” out-of-stater, has another condescending piece suggesting that Sand isn’t credible, respected or qualified to hold office.

The smiles must be broad among Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s supporters. The North Dakota Democrat could (again) face Republican Duane Sand on the November ballot for the state’s lone congressional seat. Sand, who lost once to Pomeroy and once in a run at Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., will reveal his intentions this week at news conferences around the state.

Democrats are hoping (maybe even praying) that Sand will seek – and get – his party’s nomination. Republicans, on the other hand, might be less than thrilled at the prospect of yet another Sand candidacy under their banner.

But what are they to do? State Rep. Kim Koppelman, R-West Fargo, who would have been, if not a winning, certainly a credible, respected and qualified candidate, said no a couple of weeks ago. If there are others who are considering the race, they’re keeping it to themselves.

For the record, Sand is a nuclear engineer who has only spent significant amounts of time out of North Dakota while serving in the US Navy.  But this means, for embittered hacks like those writing editorials for the Fargo Forum, that he’s not a real North Dakotan and that he’s not qualified to hold office.

Which is something that strains the boundaries of reason.

I wonder why the Forum never sees fit to level this kind of nasty, insulting rhetoric at people like Kent Conrad, Earl Pomeroy or Byron Dorgan?  Conrad has been in the news a good deal of late telling the public that the federal budget he came up with will “lower taxes.”  Yet the truth is that if that budget is followed to the letter every citizen of this country who works for a living is going to face significant tax increases.

Kent Conrad can go around and lie about his budget with nary a criticism from the editorial team at the Forum, but by simply announcing his intention to seek his party’s nomination to run for the House Duane Sand invites a snide, sneering editorial all about anointing Earl Pomeroy for another two-year term.

I think this just illustrates why everything the North Dakota media says must be taken with a grain of salt.  Even in this modern age of journalism they still act as though they are the gatekeepers to current events and public opinion, and think that they can sit high in their ivory towers and dictate the way things are or ought to be to we the unwashed masses.

Which is total bunk, and probably why newspapers like the Forum are hemorrhaging readers (between 2005 and 2007 the Forum lost 5.8% of its readership). 

The people want news and fair analysis, not snooty screeds about politicians the editors find personally objectionable.