Bluestem Prairie grows increasing impressed by the ability of many in Minnesota's conservative movement to discard facts when convenient. We especially admire this rhetorical quality in Tea Party adherent, George Zimmerman fan boy, and Superior Mayor Hagen apologist Jim Gerdes of Sturgeon Lake, Minnesota.
In Sunday's Duluth News Tribune, Gerdes writes in Newspaper gives bias slant by telling readers who to vote for:
I am taking issue with the News Tribune’s need to tell people who to vote for via endorsement editorials. In this country, in a pure sense, people are supposed to sort out the facts and make their own decision.
Getting a biased slant from a liberal newspaper that leans socialist is not giving voters the truth, but only what’s interpreted through the eyes of some editorial board. Stay out of it. The newspaper is there to give an unbiased account of the facts, not someone’s interpretation of the facts.
Do you ever wonder why newspapers are dwindling in subscriptions? I have decided that whenever a newspaper such as the News Tribune or Minneapolis Star Tribune recommends a candidate I will vote the other way. I can make up my own decision, thank you.
The only reason I can fathom for newspapers making endorsements is that they must believe the voting public is ignorant and needs to be told what to do. Of course, that is the Democratic Party’s belief as well.
Given his antipathy to the Duluth News Tribune (and the Star Tribune, for that matter) over perceptions of liberal bias--and his loathing of the Democratic Party--we're wondering how that decision to vote the opposite way of the New Tribune's endorsements.
Let's take him at his word. Consider what strength of will and conviction that Gerdes must have had to draw on in 2014, casting votes for DFLers like Congressman Rick Nolan and Governor Mark Dayton. The Duluth News Tribune, following the lead of Forum Communications Management, told readers to vote for Stewart Mills III in the October 9 Endorsement: Ignore the critics: The choice is Mills. And for Minnesota governor, the paper published Endorsement - Minnesota governor: Johnson can bring balance to St. Paul.
It must have been tough, but we're completely certain that Gerdes is a man of his word and voted for Nolan, Dayton (and Al Franken) rather than be told who to vote for by that socialist-leaning fishwrap.
It must have been easier for him in 2010, when the the Forum Communications chain's management told him to vote for former Republican Tom Horner, who was running on the Independence Party ticket. Gerdes could safely vote for Republican Tom Emmer, without betraying his integrity.
That freedom might have lessened the soul-sickness of voting for Democrats in the Eighth's congressional district. If Gerdes is a man of his--and we have no reason to doubt his word-- he would have voted for the late Jim Oberstar in 2010, after the News Tribune endorsed challenger Chip Cravaack, especially since as MinnPost media critic David Brauer reported, Duluth editor: Fargo didn't dictate our Cravaack endorsement.
Ditto, he would have voted for Rick Nolan in 2012 after the Tribune told him to vote to re-elect Cravaack.
Likewise, Gerdes might well have voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, after the Forum chain endorsed John McCain and Mitt Romney.
Photo: A dumpster fire, via Commentary's The Trumpster Fire.
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