November 25, 2007

The Rocky Bought a Pig in a Poke - We Are Still Paying

We went looking for the essay we wrote last year about a Rocky Mountain News editorial that endorsed Bill Ritter to be Governor. Our essay was mostly selected quotes from the editorial in the order they were written:

"True, our endorsement today is a bit of a gamble . . . It could even turn out to be a major mistake. . . if Ritter himself proves to be a reckless liar . . .there is no way to verify whether what he now describes as his opinions regarding the proper role of government. . . are long-held convictions or the carefully designed themes of campaign consultants. . . some of what Ritter says makes us uneasy. . .Will "more money" be the answer to every question . . .This is a legislature that in the past two years . . .has churned out a remarkable array of cockamamie measures that would have . . . enhanced the power of such Democratic stalwarts as trial lawyers and unions. . .Owens vetoed most of those bills and Beauprez undoubtedly would veto similar ones in the future. Fortunately, Ritter insists he'd spike the bulk of such legislation, too."

One wonders if the Rocky Editorial board has enough information to answer the questions more accurately than their September 29th, 2006 "pig in a poke" editorial. Bill Ritter's answer to every question, it turns out, is "more money." Except for the modification to the Labor Peace Act, he didn't spike any labor or lawyer friendly bills, and 1072 wouldn't have been spiked if the legislative leadership had been more patient.

In short, Bill Ritter has turned out to be everything that the Rocky Mountain News hoped he wouldn't be.

No comments: