The ongoing frustration that is the state's media elite

by: Eric B.

Wed Aug 22, 2012 at 11:01:38 AM EDT

Laura Berman is a vaguely left-leaning columnist for the Detroit News. A few months ago, she gave us a pretty clear picture of what's generally wrong with these people when she wrote that she didn't believe that the GOP has a woman problem, vaguely described elsewhere as its War on Women (this was right after election fraudster and Michigan Speaker of the House helped silence Barb Byrum and Lisa Brown after they lodged vehement complaints with an anti-woman package of bills, a couple of months after the Right spent its energy defending Rush Limbaugh's three-day tirade about sluts on birth control and a couple months yet before Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's weekend comments). She's also married to Brian Dickerson, who a couple of months ago assured us that it's okay to believe in global warming because a tough guy says so. Yesterday, she again reminds us what's wrong with vaguely left-leaning media pundits with this.

Who's right?

Well, that's hard to say, but what's clear is that the process needs help.

Both parties are guilty of attempting to thwart ballot initiatives when expedient. As an appeals court judge, Bill Schuette upheld anti-affirmative action Proposal 2, dismissing an argument similar to one he now uses to oppose the union proposal.

That's hard to say. It's the job of the pundit to say things that are hard to say. If a columnist can't say things that are hard to say, what are they paid for? I'm not sure when the cool, detached "take no firm position" approach became so popular for columnists, because I suspect there's always been pressure for it to be the case. It is, however, spectacularly useless. the idea, I believe, is that we're supposed to take these people seriusly because they say things so unworthy of being taken seriously.

Yes, both sides are guilty of trying to keep off the ballot questions not palatable to their constiuencies. Only one side had that happen thought the ofice of the state's attorney general, however. True, Mike Cox was attorney general during the affirmative action question, but that's meaningless. The piont here is that Bill Schuette is supposed to be the people's attorney, and his office has devoted itself to the task of preventing the people he's supposed to represent from having their say on something.

As for the idea that the prcess neds reform, that's very true. The Board of Canvassars is utterly useless as currently comprised. Now, it mostly just functions to send ballot questions to the court system, which aren't intended to solve political problems, which by the way is what the state's attorney general is attempting to get (he's got a history of this, geting the courts to do work he wanted done in waging a legal war on medical marijuana).

The question of needed reform is almost beside the pint here, though, which is that the state's attorney general is trying to win an election by ensuring it never takes place. This is not a "both sides do it" issue.