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JUVENILE JOURNALISM

by Woody Oakes

Ronald Reagan once said, “There you go again.”

That’s my opinion of the Courier-Journal’s April 10th tirade against State Senator Dan Seum, his past due property taxes and the VET bill.

 Mr. Seum or his Nephew will eventually pay the taxes and will also pay a penalty for being late, or lose the property.  That is what the penalty in the tax law is for.  This need only be explained to anyone with an IQ below room temperature, as appears to be the case with the C-J editorial writer.

 If this is not a vendetta against Senator Seum I don’t know what a vendetta is.  The editorial headline was “Ducking Duty”.  Let me give you an example of ducking duty.  It is the Courier listing all the local companies that benefit from, but do not contribute to Thunder Over Louisville, while failing to list itself, The Courier-Journal, which probably nets more money from extra advertising and extra sales of newspapers than any other one company from this single event.

 Following are some quotes from the editorial directed against Sen. Seum and the VET bill. (AND MY COMMENTS IN BRACKETS)

·                “Made his political career by finding one obligation to rebel against…”(DEFINITION: DOING WHAT HIS CONSTITUENTS WANT, KILL THE VET)

·                “Blaming someone else for his back taxes” (NO MENTION OF THE LATE PENALTY FEE)

·                “His political specialty has been to off-load responsibilities…” (STANDING UP AGAINST THE USELESS VET IS OFF-LOADING?)

·                “…One of his skewed versions of freedom” (AS IF THE COURIER’S VERSION IS NOT SKEWED)

·                “Seum’s irresponsible bill to abolish vehicle emissions testing…” (THE BILL PASSED THE HOUSE 89-7)

·                “That (VET) bill…shifts the burden to others” (WHERE THE REAL POLLUTERS ARE!)

·                “The loss of VET’s cost effective contributions to clean air” (COST EFFECTIVE?  BULL FEATHERS!)

·                “Don’t look for him to take responsibility for the problems he likes to cause” (THE RESPONSIBLE WAY THE COURIER PAYS FOR ITS SHARE OF THUNDER?)

·                “His approach is to…let someone else do it” (SEE PREVIOUS THUNDER COMMENT)

·                “He has a glib justification for his unpaid taxes” (GLIB? NOW THAT’S A WORD TO DESCRIBE THE EDITORIAL IN QUESTION)

·                “It’s his legal, public obligation to get it paid” (AGAIN, NO MENTION OF THE LATE PENALTY)

The Courier-Journal’s editorial policy reminds me of a bully on the school playground with a big stick.  Swinging the stick at anyone he doesn’t like and getting away with it simply because it has the only stick.

 That juvenile editorial wasn’t really about a tax bill.  The tax bill was used as an excuse to swing away at the now terminal VET program and also to beat Senator Seum over the head in the process.

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