Say Anything Blog

In a must-be-read-to-be-believed editorial, Forum opinion editor Jack Zaleski blasts pretty much everyone who disagrees with him as “bloviators” or “brayers” and accuses them of coarsening the tone of North Dakota politics.

He begins:

In nearly 40 years of covering politics, mostly in North Dakota, I’ve avoided contracting the malady that eventually afflicts most journalists: chronic cynicism. I’m convinced the openness, honesty and civility of North Dakota politics inoculated me and many of my experienced colleagues against the poisons of automatic distrust of politicians.

But North Dakota is catching up with the rest of the nation’s coarse political culture. A state once known for a political landscape populated by decent people is descending into a meaner, harsher, more polarizing style of politics and campaigning.

This from the guy who used his Sunday editorial last week to blast a private citizen/political activist he disagreed with as a “corrupt mossback ideologue” with no more credibility than OJ Simpson, and call one of the state’s most popular talk show hosts a “rabid” right-winger.  It seems as though Zaleski has some rather pronounced double standards when it comes to insults.  Out of one side of his mouth his rails against “condescending insults” in politics, while out of the other side of his mouth he issues forth the sort of high-brow invective that could only originate from an arrogant media elitist (the kind that doesn’t like it when we plebes get in his face while he’s sipping his wine).

Are North Dakota politics becoming coarser?  Perhaps, but if that’s a problem Zaleski is certainly part of it.  Unless we’re to believe that Zaleski can sit in his proverbial “ivory tower” in Fargo and cast aspersions at those who disagree with him while claiming to be above it all himself.

He continues:

But it’s not the politicians who are doing it. It’s the shrill voices on the right and left – bloggers, talk radio, ideological journals. On the national stage, rational political discourse has been hijacked by the likes of MoveOn.org, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. In North Dakota similar extremist voices taint and pervert politics and campaigns. In their blinder-clad world, there’s no room for compromise or reaching across the political divide or even conceding people in the other camp might have a good idea now and again. They have no honest interest in finding solutions to knotty problems. Their priorities go to demonizing political opponents as enemies, and enemies are to be destroyed. Whether from the right or left, they qualify as a kind of American Taliban in that they preach their way is the only way.

Is it really fair to accuse a group of people of “demonizing political opponents” only to turn around and in the very same sentence do some demonizing yourself by comparing them to the flippin’ Taliban?  See what I mean about Zaleski’s above-it-all arrogance?

By the way, when Zaleski talks about North Dakota bloggers…he’s pretty much talking about Say Anything which is pretty much the only North Dakota political blog anyone reads (conceited, I know, but true).  So hi Jack.  Glad to know you’re reading.

Zaleski continues:

North Dakota has been mostly immune to that sort of corrosive nonsense until recently. The influence of “alternative” media such as talk radio and Internet journals is minimal among thoughtful North Dakotans, but the political class has been buffaloed by the constant braying and bellowing. As a result, even fair-minded politicians are reluctant to be fair or balanced or compromising because the airheads in radio or the blogosphere will rip them from stem to stern.

What’s interesting is that “alternative” media like blogs and talk radio have done nothing but provide average citizens more opportunity to engage in public debate.  To put it bluntly, the people who blog and read blogs as well as the people who listen and call in to talk radio, are nothing more than citizens.  So what Zaleski is really objecting to here is not so much a “coarsening” of political debate (which, frankly, has always been pretty coarse throughout the history of this country) but rather the fact that more citizens can make their opinions known to the public at large.

Zaleski speaks of his 40 year career in journalism.  Well for most of those 40 years, journalists were the lone voice of the public on politics since most citizens didn’t have a newspaper or a television/radio show from which to broadcast their opinions.  But now things have changed.  Any citizen can call in to a radio show, and what’s more any citizen can start an internet website and reach an audience of potentially millions.  Zaleski doesn’t like that, because it means the time of people like him dominating political discourse in this country is over.  I imagine that’s a terrible blow to his not-so-insignificant ego.

To conclude his editorial, Zaleski brings up three examples of what he describes as North Dakota’s “darkening” political atmosphere.  One is the WSI issue (which he adds absolutely nothing to), and the other two have to do with anyone in the state, Republican or Democrat, daring to challenge Governor John Hoeven:

- At least two wing nuts on the far right (allegedly Republicans) are flirting with the notion of challenging Republican Gov. John Hoeven next year. Hoeven, arguably the most popular, most successful governor in the nation, is seeking a third term. Apparently he’s not conservative enough for the dour denizens of the goofball right.

- From the lefty Democratic camp comes the numbing drone that the same Gov. Hoeven failed to improve the state’s economy because the population is still declining. Are they blind? The state’s economy is in the best shape it’s been in the state’s history. The population drain has all but halted; in some parts of the state, young people are opting to stay. Others are returning for good jobs and amenities that have sprung up during Hoeven’s tenure.

It seems to me that Zaleski is all bout saying that North Dakota Governor John Hoeven is infallible.  That he is so popular nobody should either criticize him or seek to challenge him politically.  Which is the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard.  As a member of the “goofball right” (how’s that for coarse political discourse?) who thinks John Hoeven should be challenged, let me say that I have no interest in attacking Hoeven personally.  Nor have I ever attacked him on a personal level.  Nor, to my knowledge, has Ryan Cunningham or any of the other people looking to run against him for the Republican nomination.  We simply disagree with the governor.  This does not make us “nuts.”

And the same goes for Democrats challenging the Governor.  One gets the idea that, if Zaleski got his way, the Democrats would just put out a press release saying “John Hoeven is so wonderful and perfect that we can’t conceive of a better leader for this state” and then be done with it.  That’s nonsense.  Democracy is about challenges and debate.  The idea of leaders running in elections without any sort of real challenge should be left to the tin-pot dictators of the world like Hugo Chavez.

Zaleski concludes with this:

The left brays. The right bloviates. Rational public discourse declines. Welcome to politics, 2007. I’m trying, really trying, to keep the cynicism at bay.

I think it’s obvious that far from trying to keep cynicism at bay, Zaleski is simply trying to remain relevant in a political environment that has the citizenry more engaged than ever before.