Does the Albuquerque Journal Editorial staff and the school board have it in for high school students and politics? You must think so after reading today's issue. The main headline was a big and silly story condemning a soccer team for delivering political handbills to make money for the team. This story took precedence over the johnny come lately story on the Governor's Chief of Staff calling legislative leaders every name imaginable in a recorded phone conversation. Sometimes you have to think the editors at the paper have lost all sense of proportion in their extreme right wing views. Here are a bunch of kids working to raise money for their endeavors and the Journal smacks them down with a big headline. Is this a positive thing?
Oh, silly me, the hand bills were for a Democratic candidate. That is the real crime. If the candidate were a republican the story would have read that the kids were learning the political process and how democracy works.
Better to keep young ones in the dark I guess. Speaking of which, when will PNM start carrying out their responsibilities and keep the street lights functioning on our interstates? Take a ride down the freeways and count how many burned out lights there are. We taxpayers pay them to do this and they are literally stealing from us when they ignore these. It is also a safety issue. So, Mayor Berry call them in on the carpet and chew them out.
Oh, silly me, the hand bills were for a Democratic candidate. That is the real crime. If the candidate were a republican the story would have read that the kids were learning the political process and how democracy works.
2 comments:
What if they had mowed a political candidate's yard for money? That's the ethical equivalent.
If they had volunteered their time to pass out handbills that would be different. Then, receiving no compensation, they would be materially aiding the candidate.
But since they were paid, the candidate or whoever paid them did not gain any advantage from the encounter. (They calculated what they would gain and that's the price they paid the boys.)
Like mowing the yard this was simply a business transaction with someone who happened to be a candidate.
The issue of whether or not someone gains an advantage is what's behind all that campaign finance law, the ethics of it, the conflict of interest regulations, all of it. Whether someone materially benefits.
The Albuquerque Journal is the most disgraceful rag I have ever read. It's editors fawn over the far right Republicans who seem to do no wrong and they praise a chief who by their admission models behavior they want the rest of Apd to follow. Subscription cancelled...
I'll not pay for a mouth piece for Berry, White, or Susana.
Post a Comment