WhackyNation

On many occasions in recent years, I have berated and condemned those news-media reporters, columnists, anchors, and others for forgetting the news principles they were supposed to have learned in college classes but have conveniently forgotten and become Liberal or even Socialist propagandists.

But now, after all these years, I’m beginning to feel sorry for them and concerned that, in their lopsided presentation of the news and their blind support of Democratic Liberals, they are primarily to blame for the nation’s dangerous slide toward a welfare state and the same socialism that is corrupting so many European nations.

I single out one of these propagandists because he seems to have targeted me. He is The Seattle Times’ political reporter, David Postman, an apologist for the state’s Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire, and for Democrats in general. He is always ready to praise Gregoire and other Democrats on one hand while being frequently and harshly critical of Republicans.

In one of his latest barbs, he tosses a verbal harpoon at me because I have dared to criticize Governor Gregoire for proposing to set aside a billion and a half dollars of the taxpayers’ money into what is humorously called a “rainy day fund” but is, in reality, a fund for legislators seeking pork dollars for their pet political projects.

Postman has called me “the man behind Dino Rossi’s Idea Bank,” because Rossi was kind enough to adopt my Idea Bank proposal as part of his Forward Washington Foundation. Rossi will try again to win the governorship in 2008 — a job stolen from him by the political machinations of King County Democrats.

At the same time, Postman, clearly playing the role of a Democratic propagandist and a Rossi critic, said I have disagreed with Rossi because the former state senator originated the “rainy day fund” proposal. Postman doesn’t know me very well. I disagree with many Republicans on several issues, but they have my support because they espouse Conservative principles — the principles our forefathers wrote into the Constitution and which the Democrats have ignored or opposed.

If I were Postman’s managing editor, I would have removed him from the job because he has not put aside his personal political prejudices and reported the efforts of both political sides evenly, as a political reporter should. In fact, I wonder why the Blethen family that still runs The Times hasn’t disciplined Postman and other reporters who have shown the same one-sided Democratic prejudice in the past.

At the moment, The Times has provided a sign of hope with a new investigative series that is severely criticizing the efforts of Democrats, including Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Norm Dicks, to earmark millions in tax dollars for their political buddies who contribute handsomely to their campaign treasuries.

Perhaps the Blethens will now crack down on the Democratic propaganda and anti-Republican volleys Postman and other reporters and editors have been tossing out in the news columns of the newspaper. In the two decades I worked at The Times, the paper was careful to present both sides of all political issues and candidacies. How “times” have changed!

It appears from Seattle newspaper reports that Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Norm Dicks, both Washington Democrats, have stolen a page out of the “pork” book that was written for many years by those two prime “porkers” in Congress, Senators Warren Magnuson and Scoop Jackson.

The latest news roundup tells us that Murray and Dicks were, in the special language of the Seattle Times, “among the winners in the earmark quest of fiscal year 2008, according to a new report by the consumer group, Taxpayers for Common Sense.” For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the latest double-talk from Congress, “earmarks” is the new term for what was always called “pork.”

And for those who aren’t acquainted with the gimme ways of politicians in Congress and the legislatures, let me explain further. Earmarks, or pork, are the millions of taxpayers’ dollars that congressmen and women from all 50 states grab from the federal or state tax income and assign to home-state projects — many of which are unnecessary.

Senator Murray managed to plunder — whoops, there I go again — $247 million from the U.S. treasury and earmark the funds for Washington State. Most of that money, $152 million, will go toward transportation and housing projects in King, Pierce, Benton, Chelan and other counties.

Murray was able to consign that money to Washington because she wields considerable clout as the chair woman of the Senate’s appropriations subcommittee on transportation. She was also credited with helping to steer more than $21 million in defense and research contracts to Washington firms.

That placed her among the top-ten pork — whoops, there I go again — “earmark” dollars for the home folks. Dicks, for many years a pork winner and a protégé of Magnuson and Jackson, managed to place among the top-ten porkers in the Senate by winning $87 million dollars for home projects.

Thus, Murray, Dicks, and the rest of the Democrats have managed to make a joke out of pronouncements by Democratic Party leaders earlier this year that “we must put a stop to the earmarks and balance the budget.” What short memories these politicos have once they become lawmakers.

When will the American public see through the “earmark” charade and force the creation of a constitutional amendment that limits expenditures by Congress and the legislatures to basic needs? If you champion the pork parade for Washington State, consider the fact that your tax dollars are also going to the unnecessary projects in all 49 other states.

Most of the projects for which federal pork is brought home by members of Congress should be managed and paid for by the states, the counties, or even the cities. The pork programs are additional testimony to the startling fact that Big Government has taken over our lives and that Socialism is on the way. Shouldn’t that thought be enough to scare us into anti-pork action?