Good reporting, Good column-ing

by David Safier

Here are a few wonderful moments in this morning's Star.

I loved a 2 paragraph passage in Howard Fischer's article about the governor and legislators' attempts to get Arizona to join the health care lawsuit. Adams complains about the "mandate" that he later has to admit really isn't a mandate.

House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, said Arizona needs to step in to void the "mandate" from Washington that the state spend more money to provide health care for the poor between now and 2014, when the federal law takes effect.

But Adams conceded there is no actual mandate in the law that President Obama signed earlier this month. The only requirement is that states continue to provide the same level of services they did before the law was signed in order to be eligible for future Medicaid funds.

Note how Fischer is careful to put "mandate" in quotes in the first paragraph to show the word came out of Adams' mouth. Then it looks like he did what reporters are supposed to do and asked a follow-up question about the mandate (You have to do your homework so you know enough to ask the right questions. Fischer does his homework). Adams had to admit there isn't really a mandate.

Republicans get away with this kind of sloppy exaggeration and misuse of terms all the time. "It's a mandate because it feels to me like a mandate even if it isn't a mandate. And besides, isn't 'mandate' a great term?"

(I'm reminded of Matthew Ladner's "1-to-1 teacher to bureaucrat ratio." There's no such thing, but it sounds great, doesn't it? And why shouldn't Ladner use something that sounds great, even if it's complete and utter nonsense?)

Kudos to Fischer for getting it right, and putting the information into adjoining paragraphs to make the contradiction obvious.

Then there's this beautifully written piece in Garrison Keillor's column this morning about the fact that the Republican leadership is being led by the crazies and the entertainers:

The frenzy on the right is pure fear of stepping out of line with the Republican politburo and getting shipped to Siberia. This lockstep mentality is rare in American history. Here is a grand old party frozen, suspended, mesmerized, in thrall to a gaggle of showboats and radio entertainers and small mobs of fist-shakers standing staunch for unreality, and no Republican elected official dares say, "Let us not be nuts." There will be books written about this in years to come, and they will not be kind to the likes of Congressman Boehner and Senator McConnell.

The man can write.