Flotsam & Jetsam
Anatomy of an editorial writer
Readers of the Union Leader’s editorial page have Harper’s magazine’s Ken Silverstein to thank for giving us the details of editorial page editor Drew Cline’s c.v.
Silverstein wrote the piece that appeared last month on Harper’s Web site in which he tied Congressman Jeb Bradley’s stock holdings to his vote. So, according to the New Hampshire political playbook, a day or so later he was attacked by Cline in a UL editorial as a “left-wing journalist” whose story was “immediately tipped off to its flimsiness by its first sentence, which identifies Bradley as a conservative. … Bradley is neither a conservative nor a pawn of Big Oil nor a venal stockholder who votes against the public’s interests to line his own pockets.” Yadda-yadda.
Whatever you think of Bradley and his finances, Silverstein filled in the details on Cline, who joined the paper after the not-fully-explained disappearance of Bernadette Malone a editorial page editor, who got the job after the not-fully-explained disappearance of Richard Lessner.
So what’s the deal with Cline? According to Silverstein, he freelances for the National Review and The American Spectator, has been a past Journalism Fellow at the Maryland-based Phillips Foundation, whose trustees include Becky Norton Dunlop of The Heritage Foundation, columnist Robert Novak and Alfred Regnery, publisher of The American Spectator.
Before that, Cline was a reporter and director of publications for the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, N.C. – a foundation created by Art Pope, whose family, said the News and Observer, “has given so much money to the state Republican Party — at least $700,000 in recent years — that the party headquarters bears the family’s name.”
Sure looks like he has all the prerequisites for his current job.
First-in-the-solar system?
In the hullabaloo over whether Pluto is a planet or some other kind of rock in outer space, a common description of the faraway orb was that it was made up mostly of ice and is “cold and uninhabited.”
Sounds a lot like New Hampshire in the winter. Does that mean maybe Pluto should get a shot at hosting the first primary? Republicans, however, might prefer Mars – it is the “Red Planet,” after all.
Pressing matters
No matter what you might think of soon-to-be former Nashua Schools Superintendent Julia Earl, the woman definitely should not be given any points for originality in her last-minute soliloquy to save her neck before the city’s school board.
Earl, who had been put on paid administrative leave by the board before it decided to wriggle out of a three-year contract after revelations that the superintendent spent some $8,000 in school district money on several out-of-state trips.
After attempting to defend the indefensible, Earl got to the heart of her 45-minute monologue: blame the media, in this case, the Nashua Telegraph – “the local newspaper,” as she called it – which ran a series of articles detailing her journeys.
After three months, that’s the best explanationshe could come up with?
Hearing is believing
Yes, folks listening in on political consultant/radio host Jack Heath’s Aug. 31 program on WTPL-FM Concord did actually hear Heath explain why he doesn’t need to disclose that among his political clients are Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Coburn and George Pataki, the outgoing governor of New York and potential GOP presidential candidate.
“I don’t have to say anything,” he told the microphone. “This is a talk show.”
It’s been making the rounds…
• New Hampshire must be a one-party state. After all, the only time Democrats get elected is when they act like Republicans.
• New Hampshire must be a one-party state. After all, the only time Democrats get elected is when they act like Republicans.
• As expected, Peter Spaulding dutifully becomes the third vote to approve Tom Burack, Governor Lynch’s choice for environmental commissioner.
• As expected, Peter Spaulding dutifully becomes the third vote to approve Tom Burack, Governor Lynch’s choice for environmental commissioner.
• If it suffers enough losses on Nov. 7, will they be adding the Republican Party to the list of New Hampshire’s endangered historic sites?
