You can fool all the people all the time…provided those people are D&C town bloggers
The “citizen journalists” over at the D&C town blogs are up in arms over the fact that NARAL — oh, horror — is daring to taking on anti-reproductive-rights extremist Joe Robach (for background on this story, read our reports here and here). It’s the usual pro-Robach shtick: Robach has done “a lot for the community” by running his little members items scam with FBI investigatee Joe Bruno. The best part is Lee “I’m so liberal” Strong is leading the charge with some silliness about how NARAL is an extreme group for taking a position that about 70 percent of Americans agree with (add up the two essentially pro-choice columns in most of the polls from Pollingreport.com that I’m linking to and you’ll see what I mean). Strong writes:
Actually, he (Robach) supports abortion in cases of rape, incest or if the physical well-being of the mother is in jeopardy. In some circles, that’s considered pro-choice.
Really? Maybe if your circle includes Pat Robertson and Sam Brownback…
I have nothing against Joe Robach personally. He seems like a nice enough guy, but (1) his views are too right-wing for this area (maybe not for Greece, but certainly for the rest of his Democratic-leaning district) and (2) he and one other Republican State Senator are all that is preventing the end of Joe Bruno’s Reign of Terror. What I mean is: two seats and the State Senate changes hands. That will probably happen with or without Joe Robach. And when it does, we can either have a new State Senator who actually represents our views or can we have Joe Robach sans member items.
The Bruno member items gravy train will stop running soon. And when it does, Robach won’t look so good to people. Perhaps even not to the D&C town bloggers.
Maybe I’m giving them too much credit.
Update:Â Excellent comment from Zubalove below:
In some circles…..
“In some circles allowing your wife to wear pants and earn a paycheck is considered very progressive.â€
Robach’s a really good politician, he does the baby-kissing thing a lot. He’s affable and personable; a nice guy. And he milks those member items for all their worth. But when you look at his voting record… Not exactly a moderate.
In some circles…..
“In some circles allowing your wife to wear pants and earn a paycheck is considered very progressive.”
I didn’t know that the internet has a connection to bloggers living in 1953.
Wow, I want to install a rating system for the comments just so I can give you a 4 for that 1953 sentence. Awesome.
Does anyone here suspect that most politicians are actually pro-choice but are afraid of alienating their constituents?
I think that the vast majority of politician are pro-choice in practice. There’s an old saying “when someone says a surgery is minor it means someone else is getting operated on.” Ditto for abortion: when someone says abortion is a murder, it means someone else’s teen-age daughter just got pregnant.
Corollary from one of my previous managers:
Ok, with the rating system, I’d give you a 4 for that one.
I wonder if it’s the same Lee Strong blogging for the D&C that is a long-time Catholic activist and writer (for the Catholic Courier at one time, maybe?) in and about Rochester.
It is. This I know.
I believe it is the same person. If so, here is another piece of his writing (note the downingsview Drive address, which is in Gates)
http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/archives/2003/2/Reader+feedback+2+5+03
And this, which includes the same bike riding piece that is on his D&C web page
http://backpew.blogspot.com/
His D&C bio does not disclose any of this, so the average reader can not gauge the axe he is grinding when he blogs for the D&C.
You’re either pro-life, or you’re not. Just like there’s no such thing as a little bit pregnant, you’re not pro-life if you condone the murder of an innocent child. The conditions under which it was conceived is not the child’s fault. So why is it okay to punish it for those conditions?
Wow. Grinding Axes? Catholic Activist?
You could have added former award-winning staff writer for City.
But I wouldn’t describe myself as “I’m so liberal.” I’m more of a raging moderate.
I’m more of a raging moderate.
God help us.
For the record, I don’t consider your or Robach’s position here extreme in an absolute sense, but your positions *are* extreme relative to most voters in this region., whereas NARAL’s are not.
I think you’re pretty far out of line for calling NARAL extreme and, moreover, I don’t like the whole “I can’t believe they’re criticizing St. Joe!” tone of a lot of the coverage of this (though yours isn’t so bad this way, to be fair).
Thanks Exile. I don’t regard him as St. Joe.
By the way, this was a comment here from back on March 8:
“The Gates blog is excellent in general as is the Henrietta blog.”
That’s why I’m criticizing you today. I only bust the chops of bloggers I usually like.
I do find it bothersome that there are several far right posters on the town blogs and only who is even center-left — you. That’s why I was so disappointed by your comments about NARAL.
[...] position I disagree with *strongly*. Yet I hesitate to call it “extremist” (except when Lee Strong provokes me by calling my position on the issue, which is favored by about 60-70 percent of Americans, [...]