I don’t give a rat’s ass if Ryan Zinke is too chicken-shit to debate John Lewis or Mike Fellows in Billings on September 29 like he was supposed to.
I do have to wonder if Ryan Zinke’s former seal comrades gave a rat’s ass as to his cowardice, and if that affected their missions.
But that information’s classified, and many former Seals still have a thing called honor that precludes them from talking-up Zinke’s absurd record.
That doesn’t prevent me from talking about it, however, and I will if I can get that information. Until then, however, I’d like to write about the sham these House debates have become and why the Montana media should just tell Zinke that if he doesn’t want to debate, the podium will be standing there empty for all to see on TV.
Why doesn’t the Montana media have any balls? I’ll just come right out and ask it, for the decision by Montana PBS to just roll over and play dead because a politician is having a bad day really makes me think that’s the case.
Zinke made the announcement on Friday, August 22, that he’d not be debating John Lewis in Billings. Now, here’s the real hum-dinger, as the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported today:
I do have to wonder if Ryan Zinke’s former seal comrades gave a rat’s ass as to his cowardice, and if that affected their missions.
But that information’s classified, and many former Seals still have a thing called honor that precludes them from talking-up Zinke’s absurd record.
That doesn’t prevent me from talking about it, however, and I will if I can get that information. Until then, however, I’d like to write about the sham these House debates have become and why the Montana media should just tell Zinke that if he doesn’t want to debate, the podium will be standing there empty for all to see on TV.
Why doesn’t the Montana media have any balls? I’ll just come right out and ask it, for the decision by Montana PBS to just roll over and play dead because a politician is having a bad day really makes me think that’s the case.
Zinke made the announcement on Friday, August 22, that he’d not be debating John Lewis in Billings. Now, here’s the real hum-dinger, as the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported today:
“Lewis spokeswoman Kathy Weber said they had agreed to the debate in part because they had been told it would be broadcast even if Lewis did not come.”
Talk about a kick in the balls! Maybe Zinke kept thinking of his poor debating performance on the first go-round. It was made clear as early as August 12 that the debate would happen, I guess even if Lewis himself was the only one there (yeah right, Fellows giving up free media – ha!). Hell, Montana PBS’s director of content, Aaron Pruitt, confirmed as much.
This is like me having a doctor’s appointment, but because the appointment before mine didn’t show up now the doctor took the rest of the day off and I’m screwed.
How is this fair? Well, it’s not. So what will be done about it? A whole lot of nothing.
I’ve already gotten one reader of this site emailing me about this problem, encouraging me to write about it. Honestly, I pretty much let Don Pogreba over at Intelligent Discontent do most of the Lewis/Zinke work – he’s pretty good at it – but when something so vile and wretched and just nausea-inducing as this comes along I have to do something.
So what’s with all the backpedaling? Why is Montana PBS going back on its word, sorry, written word? Damn, I’m not lawyer, but maybe something could be done about this? Yeah, if Lewis wants even more animosity from the GOP press.
Which brings up a damn good question – why is this allowed to stand, why isn’t the press screaming about it, and…well, why?
Well, Pruitt went on to say that the promise was never given, and probably couldn’t have been – the FCC requires equal air-time for all candidates. That’s nice – now the GOP is taking advantage not just of tax loopholes but communication law loopholes, allowing them to steal even more elections.
I can only hope that when we have a Democrat high in the polls that they too skip out on a debate. I call it pulling a Zinke, and I think it’ll become a common term in Montana.
After all, if Republicans can do it, why not Democrats? Now we’re getting into nukes – people don’t use them because they’re simply too destructive. Pulling a Zinke is like that because now Dems will do it each election cycle, just like Zinke started.
So now in the future you’ll have Montana GOP candidates blaming Zinke because they can’t debate, their Democratic opponents citing the ‘pulling a Zinke’ loophole in the FCC that allows them to do what they want.
This is a terrible strategy and just goes to show how awful the hold of the Democrats and the Republicans on our election cycle really is. It also shows how dependent on the media candidates are. If there were no media people couldn’t get elected, right?
Fuck that! John Lewis, set up a debate room somewhere, have an empty podium, invite Mike Fellows, and put it up on YouTube and pay the TV stations to run clips. This is your debate. Call it a campaign ad, an exceedingly long one – get past the FCC just like Zinke is.
Lewis, this is not a setback, this is an opportunity…use it.
This is like me having a doctor’s appointment, but because the appointment before mine didn’t show up now the doctor took the rest of the day off and I’m screwed.
How is this fair? Well, it’s not. So what will be done about it? A whole lot of nothing.
I’ve already gotten one reader of this site emailing me about this problem, encouraging me to write about it. Honestly, I pretty much let Don Pogreba over at Intelligent Discontent do most of the Lewis/Zinke work – he’s pretty good at it – but when something so vile and wretched and just nausea-inducing as this comes along I have to do something.
So what’s with all the backpedaling? Why is Montana PBS going back on its word, sorry, written word? Damn, I’m not lawyer, but maybe something could be done about this? Yeah, if Lewis wants even more animosity from the GOP press.
Which brings up a damn good question – why is this allowed to stand, why isn’t the press screaming about it, and…well, why?
Well, Pruitt went on to say that the promise was never given, and probably couldn’t have been – the FCC requires equal air-time for all candidates. That’s nice – now the GOP is taking advantage not just of tax loopholes but communication law loopholes, allowing them to steal even more elections.
I can only hope that when we have a Democrat high in the polls that they too skip out on a debate. I call it pulling a Zinke, and I think it’ll become a common term in Montana.
After all, if Republicans can do it, why not Democrats? Now we’re getting into nukes – people don’t use them because they’re simply too destructive. Pulling a Zinke is like that because now Dems will do it each election cycle, just like Zinke started.
So now in the future you’ll have Montana GOP candidates blaming Zinke because they can’t debate, their Democratic opponents citing the ‘pulling a Zinke’ loophole in the FCC that allows them to do what they want.
This is a terrible strategy and just goes to show how awful the hold of the Democrats and the Republicans on our election cycle really is. It also shows how dependent on the media candidates are. If there were no media people couldn’t get elected, right?
Fuck that! John Lewis, set up a debate room somewhere, have an empty podium, invite Mike Fellows, and put it up on YouTube and pay the TV stations to run clips. This is your debate. Call it a campaign ad, an exceedingly long one – get past the FCC just like Zinke is.
Lewis, this is not a setback, this is an opportunity…use it.
