The Strib’s Uppity Peasant Patrol
By Mitch Berg
One flap I missed in this morning’s rundown of the present and future of the MNGOP was the railroading of Brandon Sawalich.
Sawalich was arrested last week for driving a truck with expired tabs. The airport police grabbed and detained him, and initially moved to charge him with a gross misdemeanor that means, essentially, “tax evasion on wheels”…
…before they discovered a “clerical error” that showed his tabs were six, not 18, months out of date. Anyway – it led Sawalich to bow out of the MNGOP Chair race (prematurely and for all the wrong reasons, according to some, and I don’t entirely disagree).
Mr Dilettante covered the “story” as well as anyone – and by “story”, I don’t mean Sawalich’s utterly mundane offense, but the media’s approach to covering a prominent Republican, which D accurately termed more a “rectal exam” than news coverage:
So, Sawalich is out of the race, has paid for his tabs and is presumably going back to being a private citizen. End of story, right? If you thought so, you don’t understand the modern media environment. The Star Tribune saw fit to add a completely gratuitous paragraph to the end of his account, detailing events in Sawalich’s life that happened 8 and 10 years ago, respectively. If you want to see what they are, you can click on the link, but I’ll not share them here. Sawalich is apparently 36 years old, which means that the events in question happened when he was less than 30 years old. In other words, even though he is now out of the race, Sawalich was Emmerized.
To the editorial board and, I suspect, not a few of their reporters, Republicans are like wild boars; you have to make sure they’re dead. There’s no such thing as overkill. Classic example; the Strib’s coverage defamatory lynching of Alan Fine in 2006; 32 column inches about a “domestic violence arrest” that never resulted in a conviction, had no physical evidence, and was completely expunged, that ex-wife in question had herself garnered a domestic violence record, and the widely-abused nature of these sorts of charges – all to smack down a candidate who might have gotten 35% with a tailwind and without a Ventura Party candidate who made moderate-to-Republican noises. Such are the precautions the media must take to ensure the victory of a deeply-flawed, yapping little schnauzer like Keith Ellison.
There’s a message in that last paragraph — if you would seek to be a prominent Republican, or even prominent in the inner workings of the party, you can expect to have every indiscretion of your life shared with the world. So you’d better damn well keep your light under a bushel.
That’s what Alinsky preached. It’s what the DFL – and their willing accomplices in the media – practice. It should surprise nobody.
December 19th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
I would agree that the extra stuff at the end was overkill and cheap shot. But I also believe it is good news and good work that Security arrested someone with expired tabs at the Airport. That is a red flag someone correctly identified.
December 19th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Liberals need a pulse. Conservatives need sainthood.
December 19th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
One more reason why those of us who actually subscribe to media outlets shun the Star Tribune. If it were a little softer, I’d use it to wipe my butt. It’s not even good for that.
December 19th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
Think about Congresswoman Bachmann….the Star-Tribune hired a helicopter for fly over her mother-in-law’s farm in Wisconsin, take pictures of it from the air, and give its address.
Why? I really don’t know.
December 19th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
I would agree that the extra stuff at the end was overkill and cheap shot. But I also believe it is good news and good work that Security arrested someone with expired tabs at the Airport. That is a red flag someone correctly identified.
I’m a bit fuzzy on one of the details but assuming that Sawalich had his expired tabs (which would have said “11” on them) on his truck shouldn’t the police officers have realized that the tabs hadn’t been expired for longer than a year? If that was indeed the case, than an arrest was wholly inappropriate. If however Sawalich had purchased the 2011 tabs but just didn’t put them on his truck (which might be possible depending on how long he had the truck in storage) then I suppose he could have compounded one mistake (letting them expire) with another (having his 2010 tabs on his truck) leaving him vulnerable to a clerical error and an unnecessary arrest.
December 19th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
I know they’re ethically bankrupt, but I thought they were financially bankrupt as well. How do they keep crapping that stuff out of their presses everyday? They’ve been trying to give the paper away to me for 15 years but I’m holding out for a cash bribe.
December 19th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Well, Chuck, in my opinion, they are continuing to be the hatemongers that they are. If we recall, Norm Coleman’s house was vandalized during the election that he lost to that mental midget, tax dodger, Stuart Smalley. His address was supposedly leaked by the Red Star.
December 19th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Unfortunately, their corrupt tactics work. When will the right strategize a way to fight back?
December 19th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Thanks for the link, Mitch. The Alan Fine case was even more egregious than what happened to Sawalich, and utterly unnecessary, too.
December 20th, 2011 at 10:35 am
With the limited non-pay access it is likely that the Strib is getting a lot fewer readers.
December 21st, 2011 at 9:14 am
If you want to see a politician committing a crime going unreported by the Strib, check out this link from the WSJ:http://on.wsj.com/uOpx6b
In brief, a powerful NY state senator resigns from the senate after pleading guilty to corruption charges. His party affiliation? I’ll let you guess.