What happens when a blogger relies only on the mainstream media

Your faithful correspondent is determined to mine the mainstream media to find news of interest and to provide a unique analysis drawing on my personal political point of view and memories that extend back to the 1960’s. The problem is that the mainstream media often gives short shrift to news items that are inconvenient to their corporate interests. For example, a story that suggests that King George the Incompetent was not fairly elected is bad for business in two ways.

First, take a company like General Electric, one of the largest military contractors in the U.S. and the owner of the National Broadcasting Company. Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that bashing Bush is bad for business. And by the way, they got plenty of rocket scientists.

Second, take a company like the Fox network. It is obvious that by being pitchmen for the administration, the reporters have gained access at an unprecedented level. Dumb Dubya got Tony Snow a job, and the rest of us have been getting a snow job ever since.

Nevertheless, every once in a while, I glean little tidbit from some out of the way media source. That’s when my blogger instinct kicks in. For example, I ran across this little nugget in the Seattle Post Intelligencer: Election Staff convicted in recount rig.

CLEVELAND -- Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio’s most populous county.

Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty.

Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.

Though the article makes no mention of it, an accompanying picture shows Rosie Grier, (see below) who was acquitted on all seven counts of various election misconduct or interference charges.

And this is where the perspective of a veteran of the sixties comes in handy. You see, this ex-hippy is old enough to remember Rosie Grier, pictured here (second from left) when he was one of the “Fearsome Foursome,” the only complete defensive line all enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. He is also remembered for serving as a bodyguard for his friend, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, although he was hanging with Ethel Kennedy the night that Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968. According to my recollection, it was Rosie who seized the weapon used to shoot RFK. (Others say it was Rafer Johnson.)

The point is that the mainstream media provides no context to how this courageous defender of an icon of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party could ever be suspected of stealing an election for Dumb Dubya.

Let’s review what we know so far. This paragon of toughness was also an ordained minister, and the author of a book called “Needlepoint for Men.” Clearly, he had (shall we say?) a sensitive side. His autobiography is entitled “Rosey: The Gentle Giant.”

But if it weren’t for bloggers like Big Mitch who are willing to look beyond the scant reporting provided by the mainstream media, nobody would ever wonder how he turned into the person shown in the picture that accompanied the Seattle PI article:


Come to think of it, the mainstream media didn’t do a whole helluva lot of reporting about the fact that people were convicted in Ohio of rigging the election that put George W. Bush in office for a second term.

Somehow, I am left with the feeling that I may be missing a part of the story.

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”