ShareThisIn the rarefied air of this most ancient of state capitals where Anglo and Hispanic cultures mix to provide a rich political broth, Bill Richardson has always been a curious phenomenon even for the "Land of Enchantment" -- an adept manipulator who has managed to keep one foot in the statehouse and the other on the national scene.
A media darling often sought out for his opinion on world affairs, the former congressman, Energy secretary and U.N. ambassador had hardly been inaugurated governor here two years ago before he began showing signs that he was interested in returning to the national arena. This time, however, he wanted the largest of prizes -- the presidency of the United States, a task that requires mountains of money.
Whether or not this ambition to become the country's first Hispanic to reach such heights caused him to involve himself heavily in the "pay for play" atmosphere that has been part and parcel of New Mexico politics is what a federal grand jury is now trying to determine. The basis of the investigation is whether Richardson traded state contracts for campaign contributions from a key executive of a California financial group.
There seems little doubt that if nothing else, there is an appearance of impropriety in the transactions that took place so closely together that it would be difficult not to suspect there was a quid pro quo even though the governor and his aides emphatically deny any such link. Despite those denials, Richardson decided that his Senate confirmation as Barack Obama's Commerce secretary would probably be a difficult, drawn out affair that would expose the new president to unneeded stress at a critical time.
That is about as noble a spin as one can put on a possibly ignoble situation. The inquiry -- first reported by the Albuquerque Journal -- has been underway for six months and was pooh poohed by the governor's office as inconsequential. In fact, Richardson didn't even bother to mention the investigation on the form he filled out for the Obama transition team and clearly the team's vaunted vetting process came up short.
So what changed within the last few weeks to make the high profile governor decide to give up a chance to move back to Washington even if it wasn't as secretary of State, the position that he clearly coveted? Why, it seems fair to ask, after dropping out of the presidential sweepstakes and alienating his former mentor, Bill Clinton, by enthusiastically endorsing Obama during the primary process with obvious thoughts in mind has Richardson taken this step? There is speculation here that he has become aware that his political future is more threatened than he first suspected, that perhaps he even has been told formally or informally that he is a target of the investigation, often a final stage before a possible indictment.
Richardson's super ambition and his indisputable hunger for the national spotlight have caused him to make decisions detrimental to his political health. There seems little doubt about that. He clearly "dissed" the Clintons, refusing their entreaties to remain neutral during the primaries despite the fact he was appointed to two important positions in the Clinton administration. The what-goes-around-comes-around aspect of the State department post going to Hillary Clinton was certainly not lost on him or anyone else for that matter.
Whether Richardson can bounce back from this, of course, will depend on the outcome of the inquiry. If, as he contends, neither he nor anyone in his administration had done anything wrong, he might still win a new trip to Washington in another role. Obama graciously accepted his decision. But it should be noted that he did nothing to dissuade him, which should tell us something.
It is important to note here that the entire matter was brought to the public's attention by a professional reporter at a major newspaper and not by an amateur on the Internet, once again certifying the importance of trained journalists to the national interest. What happens to our democracy when they are no longer around? It is a question worth pondering.
(E-mail Dan K. Thomasson, former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service, at thomassondan(at)aol.com.)
COLUMN
Richardson pay to play
Sadly this outstanding work by a local paper will be all for naught! He's a liberal democrat, people. The slimes and the rest of the lame stream just finished pooh poohing the same story about the Arkansas grifters where a long standing GOP contributor gave a bunch of money to the Clampitt Foundation and was miraculously rewarded with major tax considerations, spearheaded by the hildebeast, which enabled enabled him to put together a huge project in upstate NY. No news here!
Professional Reporters vs.. Amateur
In the final paragraph of this article, the author states:
"It is important to note here that the entire matter was brought to the public's attention by a professional reporter at a major newspaper and not by an amateur on the Internet, once again certifying the importance of trained journalists to the national interest. What happens to our democracy when they are no longer around? It is a question worth pondering."
He utterly fails, however, to note that the grand jury investigation wasn't brought out by the press FAR FAR earlier, even tho he himself notes its been ongoing for at least six months. Why was it missed by the 'professionals' for so long?
Furthermore, totally aside from pondering what might happen to our REPUBLIC if professional journalists are no longer around, we've already seen what happens with them present. Gross bias. Failure to report newsworthy facts while tons and tons of trivia is spewn about, gross bias constantly displayed, blatant double standards applied in a 'determination' of what is or isn't newsworthy, and pertinent facts totally omitted if they happen to be contrary to the liberal agenda of those same so-called 'professionals.'
If you want professional journalism to continue, start reporting UNBIASED FACTS. Poll after poll shows that this nation is primarily a slightly center right leaning nation -- yet the national and 'professional' news journalists are a heavy left/liberal bunch. Its no wonder that people are fleeing to fox news, the internet (where at least we can shop around and over time piece together the facts on our own, facts we OUGHT to get from the 'professionals' up front, but no longer can! DO YOUR JOBS for heavens sake!!) THATS why people are abandoning the opinionated subjectified grossly liberal biased double standard mainstream media. The 'professionals' have gotten to be awfully good at reporting 'he said, she said' but are in general doing a lousy job when it comes to even the most basic investigative type work, in general are failing miserably when it comes to actually presenting 'who, what, where, when, why' and in providing even the most basic facts or historical context related to the 'he said, she said' stories.
Take a look at the zeigler poll results of what the typical American "knew" just prior to the presidential election regarding issues related to Palin vs. Obama -- that's the result of the current 'professionals' at work these days. Take a look at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/01/08/video-sarah-palin-strikes-back-biased-media and WATCH the imbedded video of a Palin interview. The 'professionals' did a great job of informing us of all the incorrect and often nasty rumors about Palin, or how much MAY HAVE been spent on her campaign clothes -- without any verification of those claims, without telling us how much other candidates or their campaigns spent on their hygiene and clothes.
That said, I probably ought to also state that personally I'm neither republican or democrat, I'm issue based and want integrity and good character in office and wasn't very happy with any of the presidential candidates -- this is NOT an 'anti-Obama' rant, its a "PLEASE GIVE US SOLID FACTS IN OUR NEWS COVERAGE, and QUIT presenting your personal opinions, lack of facts, views on how you THINK we OUGHT to interpret various situations as if this is professional objective journalism. Unfortunately that's NOT what we generally get. The 'professionals' OUGHT to be informing us of objective facts. Digging out whether a candidates claims are factual or just crap, whether a candidates' claims match historical records of his/her own remarks and/or claims, or are simply made up out of whole cloth or wishes or worse, a desire to fool the rest of us. Why did we see more "news" about polling results than about the issues themselves? How is it possibly more 'newsworthy' to write about what the population believes, rather than helping to INFORM us of the facts related to the very issues?? Not to mention related historical statements, claims, and facts associated with the various political statements and/or claims made by the candidates? how about some historical evaluation stories of candidates voting records. Where was all of that? Why aren't the 'professionals' doing a vastly better job of researching and applying a skeptical eye and then providing us with FACTS about issues such as global warming, alternative energy, etc. Facts and unbiased "present BOTH sides" type of reports on WHATEVER the issue happens to be.
Where have the 'professionals' been when its come to "global warming?" How many sensationalist articles do we see day after day, with virtually zero coverage of the very active controversy? How many of these 'professionals' have uttered and repeated the blatently incorrect claim of some supposed 'consensus' among the scientists regarding global warming? Those of you thinking 'tinfoil' as you read this ought to search out and watch "the great global warming scandal" BBC documentary (I've yet to even see mention of this excellent documentary by our 'professionals'), or some of the rare articles that discuss the numerous grossly incorrect and clearly unscientific claims and flaws of the 'documentary' "the inconvenient truth." The Nobel Prize people involved in awarding Gore ought to be dying of shame but somehow I doubt they are. The 2008 carbon trading scam is already estimated to be worth over $118 BILLION. Where are the professional reports explaining the gross flaws with these schemes? Where are the 'professional' articles documenting how the liberal 'green' agenda is being foisted on our children in schools? How often legally owned guns are used to STOP crime and PREVENT deaths?
I'm certain there are MANY better articles and links than those I provide here -- these are just off the top of my head and/or convenient -- and are only on the global warming issue -- but are intended to simply get a few readers started in recognizing how grossly flawed the 'professional' reporting out there on the single issue of global warming has been. At least there are at least some decent facts in these links (which are written by 'professionals' who are really acting like professionals)... so try:
FACTS I bet most don't relize about the vaunted IPCC reports: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7334
Or the FACT that the IPCC has, at best, a few hundred climate related scientists clamoring about man-caused global warming, while there are over 31 THOUSAND scientists who state that there is insufficient evidence to even begin to support a claim of man-caused global warming -- something like 9,000 of those scientists with PhD's: http://www.petitionproject.org/. Note that these scientists' credentials are verified and they have obtained hard copy signatures, this is NOT some online only thing. Where have any of the 'professional' mainstream media journalist's mentioned these rather pertinent facts in with claims of man-made global warming stories?
Or try: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=5ef55aa3-802a-23ad-4ce4-89c4f49995d2
And: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/01/global_warmmongering_more_silk.html
I could go on and on. Point is, there is a massive problem with so-called professional journalist coverage these days, and its grossly damaging our society. Good bloggers have been turning up solid facts and debunking errors in 'professional' coverage left and right. Yes, there are tons of really BAD bloggers too, but there are a lot of excellent ones, ones that do a far better job of presenting facts than many if not most of the 'professionals.' We DESPERATELY need a return to some integrity in coverage, UNBIASED coverage, and solid editorial review to weed out bias, double standards, and inaccurate or fluff pieces. We most certainly do need good professional journalists to present news articles -- but right now on average the quality of coverage is really dismal. You want professional journalism and mainstream media to survive? Then FIX the coverage so we can trust news again!! Otherwise your readership will continue to disappear until the mainstream media is gone too.