blogger interrupted

UPDATE - And, of course, the famous PD out-of-office reply from the editor herself, which means Egger has free rein over his front page.

Thank you for your message.  I will be out of the office until mid-September.  If this is about a news issue or problem, please contact the managing editor, Debra Adams Simmons at:  dasimmon@plaind.com or call her at 216-999-4737.

Can’t even make this stuff up anymore.

UPDATEx2 - Tom Blumer, right on cue, fans the flames.  Sure looks coordinated to me.

—–

There is really one job for the publisher of a newspaper, and that’s to create the front page.  It’s the one any publisher cares about.  It’s the job they dream of having control over their entire careers.

Plain Dealer publisher Terrence C. Z. Egger is using this job to promote a right wing agenda.  The proof is on his own front page.  And it looks like the guy is just warming up.

As with last Friday, Egger decides to blow a mole hill into a mountain by quoting a Republican who has an agenda.  Last week, it was the wingnut Buckeye Institute.  This week, with the same reporter, Joe Guillen, it’s Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Chair, REPUBLICAN Jeff Hastings, who looks like he’s gearing up for a big, fun, voter suppression game.

Here’s what the BOE did on Tuesday to warrant any news at all.

At its Tuesday meeting, the elections board cancelled five fraudulent registrations submitted by ACORN workers.

FIVE voter registrations.  And Egger puts a headline on the front page, but that news on page A16, on the day that the first black man becomes nominated for president in American history.  Egger’s got reporters in Denver who could cover that history, but he instead uses wire stories to cover that.  He’s got a bigger job for his wingnut tool Joe Guillen - gin up voter suppression with Jeff Hastings.

The voter suppression plan the Republican party is planning for this fall is starting to be clear.  They want the longest lines possible in black precincts.  They want the most confusion possible in voter registration roles.  And they want nothing but chaos on election day.

One way the Republicans will get chaos on election day is by gunking up the voter rolls with bullshit challenges to voter registrations.  One way to do that is to have the PD editor put a bullshit story on the front page of his newspaper so Jeff Hastings and his other wingnut buddies can point to it and say, “See!  We need to challenge voter registrations!”

In 2004, the challenge to the voter registration would come from a party challenger.  That didn’t work, because Republican party challengers in Cuyahoga County were squirelly white boy college kids from Bay Village who never wandered into an inner city in their lives, let alone a polling place to challenge a black man’s vote.  It collapsed before it started.

In 2008, the challenges can only come from a board official.  What appears about to happen is some boot-strapped argument based on 5 voter registrations that allows board officials to challenge voter registrations before voting even begins.

PD publisher Terrence C. Z. Egger looks happy to play along.

Popularity: 8% [?]