{"id":20589,"date":"2011-06-16T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2011-06-16T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20589"},"modified":"2012-01-06T14:02:06","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T20:02:06","slug":"the-duality-of-existence-twin-cities-media-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20589","title":{"rendered":"The Duality Of Existence: Twin Cities Media Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

At its very, very best, watching the Twin Cities mainstream media covering inter-party politics between the DFL and MNGOP is a zen-like experience; you hope, in the best of all possible worlds, for some rudimentary balance.<\/p>\n

To wit: Bob Von Sternberg over at The DFL Casserole<\/span> The Strib’s <\/em>“Hot Dish Politics” blog tips his hand as re his editorial sympathies, just a tad<\/a> (with emphasis added):<\/p>\n

Members of a legislative budget commission met for the fourth time Wednesday, for the first time moving past their shopworn soundbites<\/strong> as they picked through the details of Gov. Mark Dayton’s just-released plan to shut down state government if a budget deal isn’t reached by July 1.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hm. \u00a0Wonder if any of Dayton spokesbot Bob Hume’s “soundbites” – which, on Twitter, read exactly like a chron job executing a Perl script – qualify as “shopworn soundbites” to Mr. Von Sternberg?<\/p>\n

And in something of a role reversal, Republicans — whose budget-balancing strategy relies entirely on spending cuts<\/strong>…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nope. \u00a0No bias there.<\/p>\n

On the other hand:<\/p>\n

…accused the Democratic governor of proposing the shuttering of government services that will deprive Minnesotans of essential services. They cited his plans to shut off the flow of aid to public schools and halt payments to health and human services providers.<\/p>\n

“Whose budget is more draconian,” demanded Sen. Julianne Ortman, R-Chanhassen, using the word Dayton has often employed to describe the GOP’s spending cuts [albeit not, apparently, a “shopworn soundbite” – Ed.<\/em>]; she called his shutdown plan “complete hypocracy. [sic – Ed.<\/em>]”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the one hand, it’s the first coverage I’ve seen in the regional mainstream media of the accusations that Dayton has been staging the shutdown, and seeking to amp up the “pain”, at all. \u00a0That’s good.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I have this strong sense that it’ll be the only <\/em>coverage the Strib spends on it – tucked safely away in a blog that only wonks read.<\/p>\n

After the commission meeting House Minority Leader Paul Thissen returned Dean’s fire. “I am stunned about the Republicans’ concern about the delay in the delivery of certain government services as a result of the shutdown, but have shown absolutely no concern about permanently and devastatingly cutting those same services,” he said. The GOP’s health and human services cuts “are what I would call breathtaking,” Thissen said,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note to Rep. Thissen; then perhaps you and your party should have advanced a budget of your own…<\/p>\n

Republicans also used the hearing to resume their drumbeat of criticism [Let me guess – a “shopworn” drumbeat? – Ed.<\/em>] of Dayton’s negotiating style, complaining that he has remained aloof from the process.<\/p>\n

“We had a meeting a week ago, I guess, and the governor didn’t attend that,” said Rep. Keith Downey, R-Edina. “I’m just curious in the last week, the last couple days, do you have any information you can provide to us[about] how many meetings the governor has actually been in on the shutdown versus how many meetings the governor has been in on the detailed grunt work of negotiating a budget agreement versus how many meetings the governor has been in on the Vikings stadium?<\/p>\n

“That might be telling to us [to show] where the governor’s priorities are, based on where he’s spending his time.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes. \u00a0It does, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At its very, very best, watching the Twin Cities mainstream media covering inter-party politics between the DFL and MNGOP is a zen-like experience; you hope, in the best of all possible worlds, for some rudimentary balance. To wit: Bob Von Sternberg over at The DFL Casserole The Strib’s “Hot Dish Politics” blog tips his hand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,72],"tags":[186],"class_list":["post-20589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tc-media-bias","category-mngop","tag-shutdownpocalypse-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20589"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20596,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20589\/revisions\/20596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}