Katie Gillespie
Once again, I seem to have raised the scorn of a few so-called Republicans for having the audacity to invite and approve the Columbian’s new County Government reporter, Katie Gillespie into the South West Washington Opinions facebook group.
The Columbian, better known by me as the Lazy C for the extreme lack of objectivity in political reporting, hired Gillespie to replace Stephanie Rice, one that did not have an objective bone in her body.
For a little background, it was also me that blasted Gillespie on my facebook page for quickly joining in on the C3G2 (Clark County Citizens for Good Governance) facebook group, a group that grew out of the failed recall effort of County Commissioners Madore & Mielke.
It was me asking then if anybody knew of any Conservative groups she participated in, none that could be seen, leaving me with the impression that she might just be another Stephanie Rice that would ignore everything except what Lefty Lou would have her write to further has anti-M&M Boys agenda.
Shortly after, I was surprised to receive a friend request from Gillespie and accepted it. I have never met her or spoken to her in person, just our brief facebook exchanges.
“Hi Lew! Obviously I’ve gathered that you know who I am, and I just want to ask if there are any more conservative groups on Facebook that you could recommend I follow along with. I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I’m biased toward liberal causes, because I’m not. The C3G2 group reached out to me quite a while ago wanting to chat and I followed up by joining their Facebook group. I’m also a member of the Clark County RLC group, but if there’s anything else you can recommend, I would appreciate it!”
I have to admit that I find it highly ironic that she first joined a Clark County RLC group, the group currently in control of the Clark County GOP and the group from which I am currently catching grief from for allowing her into the group mentioned above.
She continued,
“I’d be happy to jump into conversations over there the exact same way I’m doing with C3G2. Whatever I can do to get quality information out. I get super excited about engaged citizens regardless of their political leanings.”
I further mentioned that conservatives tend to shy away from the Lazy C due to their very left leaning bias and lack of objectivity, to which she responded, “Well, and I certainly pride myself in objectivity.”
Her first comment, asking for conservative thoughts on a proposed plan by the county, drew a comment from Bob Larimer, “Columbian reporter scopin’ on us? That ain’t cool.”
It also drew the follow brief exchange with Steve Nelson;
Needless to say, some aren’t too receptive at that transparency they clamor for from others, as was shown last year when light was shined in on the RLC’s effort to stack PCO slots to ensure they remain in control of the party and the subsequent smear campaign launched.
Another reason I decided to approve Gillespie into the group was to show her that conservatives are not the narrow minded, hateful people we are accused of being. That we can engage sensibly without vitriol, unlike many that comment on the C3G2 hate site, so labeled due to several vitriolic descriptive comments against Republicans, primarily those elected to county office.
As I said above, the site grew out of the misguided effort at recalling Madore & Mielke, opting instead to radically transform the system of county government by a charter.
Sad to say, some comments made directed towards Gillespie apparently prove me wrong.
So yes, once again I am the bad guy.
I tried to show a person new to our community that we are good people and our views are both sane and worthy.
I tried to give someone new to a biased newspaper the chance to actually be objective by steering them information counter to the information from a hate site.
Sadly, she was well received on C3G2 and welcomed. Not so much where we claim she needs to see C3G2 are not all they claim to be.
As Bill Cismar, creator of the Opinion page stated just this morning,
“How can anyone complain that the press won’t cover stories of great interest to us, or see their own bias, all at the same time we act as if we don’t want them to know about the bias we see or hear about the stories we are concerned about?”
“I didn’t form this group just for conservatives or Republicans. I formed it for any and all people concerned with issues in SW Washington and open to a honest open dialog. It is meant to be a place to inform and educate as well as to be informed and educated.”
“Truth has nothing to fear, so be unafraid. Rather be joyful in the chance to put truth into someones purview for that is how truth spreads.”
Is Katie really objective? I don’t know.
But we will never know if we don’t give her a chance.
After all, she is not Lou Brancaccio, Stephanie Rice, John Laird or one of the others without an objective bone in their body.
Yes, I approved Katie Gillespie into a so called conservative facebook group. The reception she has received may help explain why I am stepping back from local politics that apparently too many so called conservatives wish to keep hidden in the dark.
Deal with it!
