Friday, September 29, 2006

Tester online

My Jon Tester profile for Montana Quarterly is now available to those of us in the cheap seats. In case your computer-generated ADD prevents you from reading the whole thing, Ed Kemmick has a spot-on summary.

In the Outpost comments, Rocky Smith says we should now bill ourselves as the "Democrat party weekly." Funny thing is, because of various deadlines, I did most of the reporting for that piece a couple of months ago, so I just sort of assumed that its fundamental assertion -- that Tester is a decent, likeable guy who may (or may not) have the stuff to make a good senator -- would have been called into question by now. But it hasn't. No matter how hard Burns attacks, I haven't heard him or anyone else go after Tester's basic integrity and decency.

So when a report of a near universal consensus that a human being is an OK guy is dismissed as partisan fluff, I am left to wonder what could possibly remain that isn't partisan.

2 comments:

Chuck Rightmire said...

David: Having read the piece in question, I have to say that it is very well done and points up the biggest questions in this campaign. I don't think it would be possible to write something like that about Burns, who does not have a really good track recored.

Rocky Smith said...

I am not a rabid backer of Conrad Burns, but I note that you have made no effort to call into question the falsehoods in Tester ads which claim Burns voted against funding of anti-meth efforts or the weak assertion that Burns backs a 23% sales tax. (followed by a claim that he wants to end the mortgage deduction- which nobody would get if income taxes are replaced by a sales tax). BOTH sides are slinging away with questionable material. If Tester is such a "nice guy", why doesn't he call for a stop to these kind of ads- and why don't you report on their falsehood? I see the Gazette has- twice.