“This was a bitter election campaign… [I]t felt like there was an opportunity to come together, to extend a hand rather than point a finger. So is there an opportunity now to stop the shouting and the name-calling, end the fist-pumping? I think so. But the window for this kind of thing is always open for only a short time. We’ll all need to take advantage of it quickly. The Columbian would love to cover a coming together.” – Lou Brancaccio, November 8, 2008
Yes, Lou was elated at the Democrats victory back in 2008 as were all Democrats it seemed. To watch them once they seized total control of the country, “America came together” as was expressed on a hand written sign set up outside of the Democrats Victory Party at the Vancouver Hilton that night.
Fast forward to 2013 and even though the national election was somehow in their favor, by hook or crook as the saying goes, locally Lou’s efforts to demean Republican candidates and incumbents to sway the election towards his beloved Democrats had failed. Overwhelmingly, voters throughout the county voted to elect Republicans in all but a couple races.
Nowhere was this more egregious to Lou and his faithless minions than the election for County Commissioners as incumbent Tom Mielke and challenger David Madore both were overwhelmingly selected by large margins.
And even in the 17th Legislative District after an unprecedented influx of money from Democrat operatives and continual assault from Lou’s pen against State Senator Don Benton, he was returned for a fifth term by a narrow margin.
If this wasn’t enough to make Lou’s head explode, a few months after taking their oath’s, beginning to make changes long overdue and irritating those like Lou, Mielke and Madore, seeing the need for quick action to begin turning around the County’s fiver year streak of double digit unemployment, hired Sen. Benton to be the Director of Environmental Quality.
To say that set off an onslaught of hate filled rants from Lou’s paper, the Lazy C is a gross understatement. To date, since he was hired in May 2013, there have appeared no less than 40 negative articles in the pages of the Lazy C blasting all three with the Lazy C’s editor, Lou Brancaccio labeling them the “M&M Boys” in a derogatory manner.
So much for “coming together” after a bitter and contentious election campaign, right Lou?
But even with the vitriol we have seen down at the Lazy C and even with the retirement of hate filled, bombastic editorial page editor John Laird, Lou now wallows deep in the muck of his desire to mislead and misinform Clark County with his Saturday, September 7, 2013 Press Talk Editorial, “Class on no skill set in session.”
In what he most assuredly thinks is a ‘cutesy’ Chicago-style drive by character assassination of the three elected officials, Lou goes so far as to make the claim in the hit piece against Benton, “here’s a guy that could just as easily be cleaning toilets.”
This latest hit piece is a continuation of the effort to whip up a lynch mob mentality as incensed Democrats, unable to “come together” when they lose elections, hope to undo the 2012 local election by either a recall, that is next to impossible in our state, or rewrite the County Charter through a ‘freeholder’ process that they have strongly opposed each time in past year when they were in the majority.
Lazy C Sets New All-Time Record, Stirs Up Lynch Mob, But Fails to Oust Benton
Will the Lazy C Ignore Benton – Rivers Reconciliation?
Lazy C Scrapes Bottom in Benton Bash
The above are but a few posts this blog has put out exposing the vitriolic nature of the Lazy C in their hate fest against Benton, Madore and Mielke. While there has been others, these three remain their main targets, just as this blog claimed a year ago in The Columbian Paints Targets on Three Strong CRC Opponents.
And, they have not let up, only gotten worse as last years’ election did not go as they wanted.
Brancaccio’s hate screed today centers around some fabricated claim of Sen. Benton lacking in skills, even though he has ran a successful business and been elected five times to the State Senate.
Unwary readers may miss what Brancaccio is really claiming is how dumb and ill-informed you are for electing him so many times.
In what Brancaccio tries to make look like a summation to this fictitious classroom, he writes,
“Benton appears to not have much of a skill set in anything. Despite what a few backers say, he doesn’t get along well with people, he has little management experience, and his light bulb doesn’t appear to be getting all the juice that’s needed.”
In spite of all of the hate filled vitriol thrown at Sen. Benton over so many years, vitriol that has not caused his defeat nor increased the subscription rate of the Lazy C, curiously back on November 20, 2000 an article appeared on page A1 of the paper titled, “Benton Thrives On Double Duty: Running The State GOP, Serving 17th District Earns Senator Mostly Good Reviews.”
From that article we read,
“Smack in Olympia’s epicenter, Benton will be able to turn Democrats’ missteps against them quickly in the public domain. He plans to launch a far-reaching ‘mass media voter education’ effort, based on voting records and public actions.”
“Given Benton’s years of work in radio and mass media marketing, it’s a golden opportunity.”
“Fighting to keep his post in January, he’ll draw mostly on continued support of grass-roots leaders…”
But now, we are led to believe the man lacks in basic skills to do the jobs he been hired for, even before he has any chance to actually show us he can?
But, even with all of the abject hatred Brancaccio holds for Sen. Benton and Commissioners Mielke & Madore, to make a claim of “he could have been cleaning toilets” is just going too far, even for a piece of filth like the Lazy C.
In an almost prophetic claim, Thomas Jefferson once said, “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”
Where can this better apply than with the tripe we see daily in the Lazy C?
Many label the “newspaper of record” locally as a “fishwrapper.”
I would recommend not wrapping any fish in the pages of the Lazy C.
You might not ever be able to get the smell out of the fish.
