| Well, now this is fairly strong. There is, however, no way in good conscience to endorse him to serve another term. Bolger’s recent attempt to deceive the public and undermine the legitimacy of the electoral process in Rep. Roy Schmidt’s race in the Grand Rapids area reveals a serious lack of judgment and ethical standards.
Here, we have to note that had anyone bothered to do their homework when the guy first ran for the state House, they might have picked up on the likelihood that he has certain challenges of personal character. The state and federal governments filed tax liens against his business for unpaid business and unemployment taxes. It is, after all, stuff that is easily and readily available in the public record. No one did, and it wasn't until this year that someone thought to do the journalistic legwork for media outlets, which have almost universally ignored it all. This is a good editorial. It would be much stronger if the Kalamazoo Gazette included that stuff. And, they know about it, since one of their reporters referenced it in a story over the weekend. It doesn't just speak to flawed judgment in the Bolger-Schmidt fiasco, it creates a history that suggests a House Speaker with serious personal flaws, flaws that no doubt his voters would be interested in knowing about. I hate to continue to flog this thing, but this is what the media is supposed to do. Every time you see an editorial talking about the media's special relationship with the First Amendment, it's this they're talking about ... the job of the media to paint a picutre of a public official using what's in the public record as a neutral, disinterested paint pallatte. Bolger can talk until he's blue in the face about wanting to serve his consituents, but what the public record tells us is something very different. By the way, this is one the DLCC's top races in the nation. |
