Tim Skubick: Let's Bash Granholm for Everything! Again! And Again! And...

Tim Skubick Ugh! (4.00 / 6)

One of the main reasons Tim (and I his former wife (#2)and mother of said daughter)can afford her going out of state to college is I arm twisted Tim to enroll her in MET when Blanchard first set up the program.  Still, the cheapskate wanted our daughter to stay in Michigan for college because it would have been cheaper for the scrooge to pay his share.  I made up my mind she was going wherever her heart desired and if he wasn't willing to kick in his fair share (he earns 4x what I earn) then I would just have to take out loans or do whatever to make it happen.  But I digress.

I'm surprised he conceded the point to Kathy BH since he would not be paying any more for college if his daughter went to school in Michigan BECAUSE I got him to enroll her in the MET. He does not feel the pain of regular citizens because he makes way more than working stiffs and he likes to stiff others (like his own daughter when he cashed in her savings bonds (from his mom)last summer to pay for her car repairs instead of coughing up the bucks he could well afford.  He is a cheapskate, a liar and more.  Thus, whatever he has to say on OTR is of no use to me since he can't be trusted to be honest and true.

Do I sound resentful after all these divorced years...yes.  I could say so much more but "trust me"...one of his favorite phrases...he can't be trusted in any way shape or form.

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by: GLDNRULE @ Mon Jan 15, 2007 at 14:40:12 PM CST

Thank you sharing! (0.00 / 0)

And offering great context to the quoted comment. :)

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by: quaker21 @ Mon Jan 15, 2007 at 18:39:19 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Skubic (1.00 / 2)

Skubic's hardly a right-winger, by any definition.  I guess you guys just can't take any criticism for your favored politicians.  This the second time this week an ML diary attacked Skubic.

I guess, for a reporter, when you get attacked by both sides, you're doing your job well.

"You can't handle the truth."

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by: chetly @ Mon Jan 15, 2007 at 22:28:40 PM CST

Don't be an idiot (4.00 / 3)

The problem with Skubick is that, like a dead whale decomposing on the beach, he doesn't do his job even as he attracts so much attention that people don't realize that they are missing the important stories that the lazy whale is not reporting.

Skubick is a lazy insider who has completely lost any sense of identification with readers; he has nothing but contempt for regular citizens, which is palpable in his hit pieces where he criticizes voters for their ignorance--even as he wastes his column and his TV show by covering only the horserace/style aspect of issues, never the substance.

As for disliking Skubick because he attacks "favored politicians," I invite you to peruse MichiganLiberal.com for a while--you'll see that real liberals have plenty to attack Granholm, Stabenow, and Levin et al. about, and some of us do so.  But Skubick's criticisms are simply nonsense--he attacks them first for falling afoul of his stereotypes and then for NOT doing so.  Meanwhile, real issues analysis is completely absent from Skubick's work.

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by: jmgear @ Mon Jan 15, 2007 at 22:57:08 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I sincerely hope you're being facetious... (4.00 / 5)

... but judging by your comment record, I doubt you are.

Look.

Plain and simple: Tim Skubick has a powerful voice as far as Michigan politics is concerned.  I hate to admit it, but it's true.  Who else got to really cover the MI Gov race?  Who else was able to write a book about it?

Tim Skubick.

And he does no justice to the political and policy issues that affect Michiganians.  Instead of reporting on the stalling tactics of the MI-GOP, he will write an editorial on why his "Did you murder Ricky Holland?" comment to the Governor was apropos.  Instead of talking about filling the gap in the budget to the SBT, he'd rather take pot-shots against Michigan Liberal on MIRS.

He does a disservice to the people of Michigan, and betrays the (self-appointed) position that he represents.

You have NO idea how discouraging it is as a 16-18 year old Michiganian to have your only editorail content on Michigan politics to be represented by Tim Skubick.

You have NO idea how is is to be a member of the LGBT community when all Skubick can do is bash Granholm, even when Proposal 2 (2004) is affecting people just like me.

You have NO idea how it is to have a grandmother in the decaying east side neighborhood of Lansing, when Tim Skubick sits in an ivory tower of downtown Lansing and a comfy home in Okemos, and bring on "business leaders" to talk with -- and agree with -- their positions that increasing tax revenue is a horrendous idea, when cutting the budget (police, fire, education) is implicitly a better alternative.

I don't care if he's a clown, or a charicature to us on the left.  Tim Skubick betrays the people for whom he corresponds.  He can talk all he wants about how deplorable it is to turn politics into a horserace... he still manages to only talk about it in terms of a horserace.  The ballots were barely cast in '06 when Skubick decided to talk about candidates for 2010.

It's not about being unable to accept criticsm.  It's about telling a political "analyst" (and I mean that in the greatest shadow of the term) to stop jerking with people's lives and start talking about the lives that these policies represent.

Granholm -- to me -- has always represented the underdog.  Even as a successful, savvy politician, she has stayed true to the people of Michigan.  It comes with some sacrifice.  The news isn't always rosy.  But it's a damn world away from the ivory tower of people like Tim Skubick who makes a living off of fear, sensationalism, and the corny books that he deigns to pen for a quick buck on the backs of born and bred Michiganians who hope and hold out for something better.

In these tough times, critique is warranted.  His bullshit masquareded as "analysis" is not.  So he can crawl back into the hole from whence he came -- I really don't care.  Get him off my LSJ, get him off my local TV, and get someone who is passionate about making a change.  About building Michigan.  About understanding Michigan.  And not just about the day-to-day bull that is vomited across the Capitol floor.

That is what I want.  And as it stands, Tim Skubick is in no way a part of that vision.  He is no better than a leech who sucks off whatever news item that may make him relevant.  There need be no carpetbaggers in Michigan -- whether you were born here, or not.  Be a part of the solution, or stand at the sidelines, booing and hissing like the Tim Skubicks of the world.  It does nobody one iota of good.

I've spoken my peace and I stand by it.  I stand by Michigan.  I stand by my hometown.  I don't stand with the transient representatives that we choose to elect.  And the Skubicks of the world better damn well remember that.

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by: quaker21 @ Tue Jan 16, 2007 at 01:06:40 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Attacked by both sides (4.00 / 3)

I guess, for a reporter, when you get attacked by both sides, you're doing your job well.

This is what they say, but it's predicated on not getting the story wrong in the first place.

Tim Skubick does a very good job at covering internal Lansing politics.  He's an insider who writes pretty well about what's going on inside Lansing.

When he steps outside of that, as he's done a few times, he's not getting it right if he's attacked on multiple fronts.  It could be that he just doesn't know what he's talking about.

Take his assertion that voters went with Granholm because of the China ads.  What's this based on?  The same pollsters and pundits who had the race within the margin of error going into the last days?  Do the China ads explain the Democrats taking the state House?  How about Congress?

The point?  When Tim Skubick sticks to what he knows, he's a good reporter.  When he claims to have an understanding of how state policies affect regular people ... well, it's incredibly apparent to me that he has no clue what life for me is like.

Among the Trees

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by: Eric B. @ Tue Jan 16, 2007 at 11:07:00 AM CST

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