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The problem ISN'T the Dallas Morning News. The DMN is owned by Belo Corp. Belo uses the DMN as the propaganda arm of all its profit making activities. If there is money to be made in developing a piece of land it owns, Belo will back the politicians who make/will make decisons that do them best.

Belo is pro-Cuban at the moment. I have no idea why, but I am certain that their position is based on advancing their own business interests, rather than an objectively formed opinion. I can't think of anything Schwartz wrote but, I'd bet she failed to heel on some issue that might effect Belo income rather than any issue of factual inaccuracy. But, for cover, they will replace her with a black female who can be trusted not to piss in the Belo pool and will have ultra-leftist, extreme liberal tendencies.

Marilyn Schwartz wrote a column about my wife and me a year or so ago. A few of the quotes weren't exactly right, as she worked from notes rather than recording the phone interview, but I certainly wasn't upset over such a minor point. I can't imagine someone leaving a long-running column over something so trivial, particularly when there is a legitimate medical excuse for it. Both of my parents died of cancer, so I certainly can sympathize with her plight.

As for the DMN being out of step with its readers, I have to agree, particularly the editorial writers. They were the ones who pushed Tom Dunning so hard for mayor that they were practically an unpaid campaign arm (one of their own reporters told me he was embarrassed by it), only to see the voters elect Laura Miller by a landslide. Now, they're pushing Ron Kirk for Senate just as hard, even though the reason Miller won was that she was seen as the "Anti-Kirk." We're sitting here with pitted streets, decaying parks, an understaffed and underpaid police department, a sickeningly unadequate animal shelter, a bankrupt city treasury and skyrocketing property taxes, all bequeathed to us by Kirk's administration, and they want to send him to Washington. Insane.