{"id":980,"date":"2007-06-25T14:02:10","date_gmt":"2007-06-25T20:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/06\/25\/for-whom-the-doofus-yaks\/"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:53:24","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T20:53:24","slug":"for-whom-the-doofus-yaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=980","title":{"rendered":"Biased, Unbalanced, and Fact-Challenged"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rentablogger Jeff Fecke yet again bobbles his “facts”.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the midst of an exceedingly obtuse whack at Governor Pawlenty, Fecke – who may be the most fact-challenged “journalist” in Minnesota today – writes about Luke Hellier.\u00a0 Hellier is a conservative Republican whom Pawlenty has nominated for one of the student spots on the MNSCU Board of Trustees.<\/p>\n

Fecke:<\/p>\n

Now, I don’t think anyone would begrudge Pawlenty picking a highly qualified conservative over a highly qualified liberal.\u00a0 Pawlenty is, in fact, a Republican.\u00a0 But it takes a certain Cheney-like genius to pass over a highly qualified Republican for an unqualified conservative zealot, and that’s exactly what Pawlenty appears ready to do.\u00a0 Pawlenty is evidently planning to bypass the MSUSA-endorsed candidates for Luke Hellier, who has not, to date, set foot in a MnSCU classroom.\u00a0 He has, however, served as political director for Michele Bachmann and interned with Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What Fecke doesn’t deem fit to tell the readership is that the MNSCU Students Association endorsement is neither a requirement nor, for that matter, mentioned in the Open Appointment process.\u00a0 King Banaian – an SCSU professor who interviewed Hellier and Adam Weigold, another candidate for the board on NARN III last weekend – relates<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Using the Open Appointments<\/a> process meant he filled out a form. He reports that last week, he was interviewed for the position. Nothing on that form indicated to him that he should speak to MSUSA for screening, nor did anyone from the governor’s office when they interviewed him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As to the part that the leftybloggers are hopping up and down and cackling like poo-flinging monkeys about – that Hellier supposedly “isn’t a student” – King actually went to the trouble of reading the Minnesota Statute:<\/p>\n

\u00a0when the statute says (136F.02<\/a>) that “Three members must be students who are enrolled at least half time in a degree, diploma, or certificate program or have graduated from an institution governed by the board within one year of the date of appointment<\/span>.” (emphasis added), it clearly contemplates the applicant pool to include a student entering school. Nobody disputes this. And this would appear to be the case: The entering student would be a graduate student coming to a MnSCU school. We do not offer doctorates (yet) and master’s programs typically take two years. So it’s most likely that if grad students are contemplated to join the board, they would most likely join it at the very beginning of their enrollment in a program. Without the provision I italicized, it is unlikely that graduate students could gain the 4-year student seat on the MnSCU board.<\/p>\n

Yet the system by which MSUSA announces the process it uses is exclusionary to those who would enter a program a few months after the announcement of a vacancy. It puts candidates like Luke at a disadvantage to insiders within MSUSA and the seven campus student governments.<\/p>\n

If you think that’s fair — that there should be preference for current over incoming students, even if the incoming student has experience in student government from a non-MnSCU school — you’re welcome to argue that point. Please indicate how you read that into current Minnesota statute.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those, of course, are the parts that the leftyblogs – especially Fecke and his “editors” at MNMon – don’t see fit to tell their readers; Hellier’s application is within the letter and spriit of the law<\/em>, and that the MNSCU Student Association’s endorsement is really meaningless.<\/p>\n

Why is MNMon afraid of the truth?<\/p>\n

Brodkorb attacks Fecke’s other “point” – that Pawlenty “favors” Hellier in the first place:<\/p>\n

One thing I don’t endorse is the misleading, dishonest, and downright nasty attacks Hellier has faced in the liberal blogosphere. \u00a0<\/p>\n

For example: \u00a0<\/p>\n

“A controversy regarding the appointment of a new student representative to the Board of Trustees for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system is resulting in strong criticism of a candidate reportedly favored for consideration by Gov. Tim Pawlenty<\/font>.” Source: Minnesota Monitor, June 22, 2007<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Reported by who?<\/font>\u00a0 Who is reporting that Hellier is favored? Governor Pawlenty hasn’t announced his decision yet and I haven’t been able to find a direct or indirect quote where Governor Pawlenty said Hellier is his favored pick. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I’ll repeat my question: Reported by who? Who is reporting that Hellier is the favorite as Minnesota Monitor reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is this just another rambling by one of the most inaccurate and sloppy bloggers in Minnesota, Jeff Fecke? \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One is bidden to wonder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I don’t go to MNMon for truth or accuracy, much.\u00a0 My only real question is, what does Eric Black think about the people he shares a masthead with?<\/p>\n

UPDATE:\u00a0 For the same “coverage” you get on MNMon but with a depressing dose of undermedicated twitchiness, try Cucking Stool’s fevered recitation of the same talking points<\/a>; same fact-challenged drivel, more self-adulatory incoherence.<\/p>\n

In other words, just another day in the fever swamp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rentablogger Jeff Fecke yet again bobbles his “facts”.\u00a0 In the midst of an exceedingly obtuse whack at Governor Pawlenty, Fecke – who may be the most fact-challenged “journalist” in Minnesota today – writes about Luke Hellier.\u00a0 Hellier is a conservative Republican whom Pawlenty has nominated for one of the student spots on the MNSCU Board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[326,31,144,2],"tags":[154],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-alt-media","category-blogs","category-governor","category-minnesota-politics","tag-pawlenty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","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=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49898,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions\/49898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}