Tom McClintock: Conservative soothsayer or rigid idealogue?

Sacramento Bee ^ | 5/12/8 | Peter Hecht

[lainie]

I think the problem was less 'people saying they would vote for McClintock and not following through' and more 'people participating in a beat-down of McClintock supporters.'

For reasons that were never really hashed out, such as... they were acting like party animals, agents of the political machine that pulls strings. Disloyal to their fellow conservatives, and definitely part of the problem. They were never made to admit it or pay a price for it, save for the price we're all paying.

Whatever happened to those FReepers? They're still here.

[Luke21]

This is an obvious hit piece from the Sac Bolshevik. I didn’t even bother counting the number of loaded words.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[SierraWasp]

One time I was seated with another elected official on one side of a resturant booth at a political function and Peter and another reporter were seated on the other side.

I asked Peter how he liked being seated in a booth populated with the proverbial "Scribes & Pharisees." Whenever he would interview me, he'd mention how we were both "taking the measure of the man." (as if he somehow knew how to measure men)

I think Peter thinks of himself as some kind of philosopher, rather than a mere reporter. But he's still far better than the BEE's rabidly militant "EnvironMental" reporter. He keeps thinking he's gonna git another Pulitzer Prize like the two dummies that wrote "Sierra In Peril" in the early '90's and actually did win such a phony prize.

One of those two wrote "Living Off The Fat Of The Land" in the early '00's which was very critical of the EnvironMental Vowell Movement which created a lively thread here on FR!!!

[CAluvdubya]

Sac-o-Bee continues campaigning against McClintock.

Isn't that the truth!

I hope that anyone that wants to get conservatives back in Washington, to counter the McCains of the party, start with supporting Tom McClintock.

I'm in San Diego now but I lived in Roseville for 20 years so I'm sending McClintock money. He's my grassroots! (I already have Brian Bilbray and I'll probably send Duncan D. Hunter money as well)

[afnamvet]

He has my vote and support as well. He will be my congressman too.

[afnamvet]

Some of us admitted we were wrong and did penance.

[Lancey Howard]

I read this piece and have to disagree with you. I don’t think it was a “hit piece” at all.
It came off fairly balanced, and even complimentary in some ways.

[calcowgirl]

Hecht called him a “fiscal doomsayer”... vs. a “tell it like it is truth-teller.” He said that “McClintock helped inflame renegade Republicans” to hold up the budget—instead of pointing out that those were not “renegades” but legislators that were not willing to defraud the public by ignoring the fiscal crisis a few feet in front of their noses, the same crisis that is hitting headlines today. Hecht reaches out to gadfly Tony Quinn to find a Republican to mock fiscal responsibility as “purist” “ideology.” He goes on to point out that he votes against “fuel-conservation and clean-air bills” implying that he is against the environment instead of acknowledging (or even mentioning) that many of those bills had nothing to do with conserving fuel or making the air clean. He says he has an “intolerance for wasteful spending” as if that is a bad thing!

The whole tone of the article struck me as an attempt to slime him and paint him as an extremist when those things he advocates are almost impossible to refute.

[Lancey Howard]

Thanks for your kind response.
You made many good points.