Friday, April 11, 2008

It was only a $22 meal

I was amused by a reader's response to my post on how Gov. Matt Blunt had accepted a number of gifts from lobbyists at the same time as he was declaring such gifts off-limits to all employees of the governor's office.

The reader wrote, "Are you serious? A $22.00 lunch. Alert CNN, Fox News, all the major networks..and of course The Carthage Press. The public cannot sit around an do nothing about this. Let's call for immediate hearing on Capitol Hill to get to the bottom of this."

Apparently, the reader fails to recognize the hypocrisy in this situation. What the governor is doing is telling his employees it is wrong for them to take any gifts, but it is all right for him to do so. Even worse, the governor continues to have his policy publicized in his news releases, while he violates it. He is telling Missourians that one gift, even a $22 lunch, for any of his employees is wrong because they need to be above reproach. But it is okay for the governor to accept a gift because everyone knows he cannot be bought by anything as paltry as a $22 lunch.

It reminds me of the story of the man who sees a beautiful woman and asks her if she would sleep with him for one million dollars. She says, "Sure," so he asks, "Would you sleep with me for $10?"

Indignantly, she replies, "Of course not. What kind of a woman do you think I am?"

"We've already established that. Now I'm trying to negotiate the price."

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:17 AM

    Randy,
    Their is an old saying about people "tripping over mouse turds", meaning they spend all their time worrying about little things and let the important things go by. I know in your mind that ripping the Republicans about anything possible is your calling in life, but come on. You proclaim to be this great reporter who like to tell the rest of the media world how to do their jobs, but spend the majority of your time on REPUBLICAN politics. I noticed you purposely failed to talk about school board elections (joplin), the new R-8 superintendent, city council races, etc. Maybe that's why you got canned at the Carthage Press...you were too one sided on issues.

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  2. Anonymous11:28 AM

    Telling the truth, just because you don't like it, doesn't make it less truthful.

    The previous commentator reminds me of the Fox News talking heads. If they disagree or don't like the message, they ignore the message, and attack the messenger. In so doing, maybe everyone will ignore the message.

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  3. Anonymous5:03 PM

    Fox News talking heads, I thought it was Fox Noise talking heads. Anything on that channel is either wrong or favorable to the republicans. Never waste my time on it.

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