... but very rarely is one forced to deal with the likes of the gaggle that is the Austin Press Corps (APC).
In yesterday's Austin American-Statesman, we had a little bit of a Media Redux; more accurately, we had a verbatim repeat of a story they published just this past January 25th.
'Twas not identical, actually, as the headlines were changed to deflect from the journalistically negligent. We moved from "More questions surround Texas' D.C. lobbyist" to "State lobbyist's bid fell short - Others were better on criteria, cost than Abramoff-linked firm".
Were Miss Tara Copp, our auteur du jour et du semain aussi, actually thinking (a rarity of occurrence amongst those who make up the APC), she would have at the very least reversed the order of the headlines, the better to obfuscate her deja vu approach to pseudo-reporting.
In case you missed their misrepresenting the facts before, they wanted to ensure that you had another opportunity to revel in the disingenuousness.
We demolished this pretense of Gubernatorial malfeasance the last go 'round; we are more than happy to do so again. When they stutter, it is only fair that we be allowed to respond in k-k-kind.
(With apologies to the Who and the Bachman-Turner Overdrive, amongst many others.)
The Austin American-Statesman Needs to Work Out the Discrepancies
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Once Again, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Austin Press Corps |
... in its approach to news regarding and its editoral outlook on the Texas Governorship of Rick Perry.
(Editor's Note: We have spent, and will continue to spend, a tremendous amount of time documenting the woeful inadequacies of the Austin Press Corps in this and many other regards. This is a particularly and egregiously pathetic effort, and therefore deserves pronounced stand-alone analysis.)
For yesterday, we had the simultaneous Statesman publication of a news story and an opinion piece ostensibly reporting and disdainfully editorializing on the fact that the state of Texas had hired a lobbying firm to pitch for itself in our nation's capitol.
The Statesman finds this conceptually shocking (imagine, joining the likes of fellow states Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey and Oklahoma, the California Office of Military Support, the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and a number of Texas cities in lobbying a federal government that spends $2.6 trillion per annum), and is flabbergasted by many very rudimentary facts in the process story process.
When the state first approved hiring a new lobbying firm with close ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2004, it rejected competing bids that met more of the state's selection criteria and cost less, according to documents obtained by the Austin American-Statesman.
What the winning firm, Cassidy & Associates, did have was access — all the way to presidential aide Karl Rove, according to memos and e-mails that were obtained through a Texas Open Records Request.
You mean they hired a lobby group, with the intention of gaining greater access, with the most access? How incredibly nefarious of them.
(The emboldened portion about lower cost bids becomes very relevent a little later ... .)
"Cassidy is the best fit for Texas," Office of State-Federal Relations associate director David Pagan said in a May 25, 2004 e-mail to staff. "Firm is (the) leader in DC on approps. (acquiring federal funding)."
Exhibit A, Ladies and Gentlemen. Cassidy assured Texas the greatest access to the federal largess, which is what one seeks when retaining a lobbyist. Again, shocking.
Seven Texas House Democrats also sent a letter to Gov. Rick Perry last Friday demanding that Cassidy's contract be cancelled, because the firm has not bothered to reach out to them.
We believe Lone Star Donkeys bemoaning their political irrelevance best look first within.
But the Democrat and Statesman accusation that the winning firm was too overly Elephantary collapses under the weight of the next selected excerpt.
More political balance was needed, the state's office in Washington reasoned in a Dec. 10, 2004 memo. "An additional firm can help ensure (Texas) maintains a bipartisan strategy on certain issues."
... "Cassidy & Associates is headed by a Democrat founding name partner, and is considered to be a bipartisan firm."
Ummm ... . So when they were retained, they came recommended by the Washington office as bipartisan, as they were "headed by a Democrat founding name partner". Sounds like just the sort of across-the-aisle outreach for which the Statesman is chastising the Governor and the hire for lacking.
(Editor's Note: Again, in the capitols of Texas and the nation, Democrats are decidedly irrelevant, as their minority-ness knows no bounds in either locale. Governor Perry was being indisputably more bi-partisan than we would have been.)
Our only thought is that Miss Tara Copp, the author of the news portion of this bad two-part program, began the piece, went away to have lunch (or a stiff drink), and then returned to finish the job, failing in the second half to recall what she quilled in the first.
The assessment in 2004, though, did not initially favor Cassidy, which was ranked fourth. Two of the firms ranked ahead of it would have charged Texas between $300 and $833 less per month than Cassidy's initial offer of $15,833 a month. (Once the contract was signed, Cassidy's fee was down to $15,000 plus expenses.)
So in other words, Cassidy's fee was THE CHEAPEST on offer.
If the lowest bid was $833 less than Cassidy's, and he then came down $833, he made himself, and therefore was, the cheapest of them all.
Again, from the pre-adult beverage first half of the piece we have:
When the state first approved hiring a new lobbying firm with close ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff in 2004, it rejected competing bids that met more of the state's selection criteria and cost less, according to documents obtained by the Austin American-Statesman.
Again, there was NO ONE that cost less than did Cassidy, as per the second half of Miss Copp's article, first half Miss Copp assertions contradicting herself notwithstanding.
The editorial board's contribution to this inanity is just as woefully inaccurate and self-contradictory, redundantly so in fact, as it makes the same series of errors that Miss Copp does in her pseudo-effort.
The other thing these two columns have in common is their pronounced disdain for the art of lobbying now that Republicans are in charge and able to avail themselves thereof, a contemn we are quite sure they did not profess when Donkeys ruled the roost in Austin and Washington, D.C.
And the ongoing Statesman editorial position calling for ever more governmental spending has largely been answered in Washington, and is the reason lobbyists exist today in the overly exaggerated numbers that they do, to maximize their clients' access to said additional cash.
Should Texas begin to spend at the state level the way the Statesman wishes and the federal government does, we would have a greater lobbyist issue in Austin as well. The answer is not to assault these couriers for availing themselves of their Constitutional rights, but to instead avoid having the government spend the ridiculous amounts of money that draws them to the Capitol in such copious quantity.
As we have often stated before, reduce the governmental monetary outlay, and away go a great many of the lobbyists the Statesman now finds so distasteful.
Now, if only we could ascertain a similar solution to the Statesman problem (although with pieces such as these, they are doing an excellent and unremitting job of self-dimmunizing).
Just another day at the office for the Austin Press Corps (a city that is nice becuae it is so close to Texas). The days, the weeks, the stories apparently seem to simply run together for them after a while, which may explain this so recent a redundancy.
Then again, it very well may not.
