Sinsheimer's award

The North Carolina Press Association can now give itself a nice pat on the back and check in for another nice long "Rip Van Wink at the News" nap. It would be nice to say that the press got half of this story right, but it's more like a third.

This nasty and accusatory web site emerged as the substitute for statewide press inquiries into the true circumstances of the entire struggle for leadership of the North Carolina House of Representatives during the last part of the speakership of Jim Black. It didn't possibly occur to the press that perhaps a Republican state legislator actually wanted to switch parties for reasons other than receiving eventual financial support in the campaign arena.

They key part of the background story which went completely unreported by such leading dailies at The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer was and is the extraordinary hostility and certain retaliatory action promised to any Republican legislator who expresses anything more than a passing interest in cooperating with Democratic representatives and senators in the General Assembly for progress toward bi-partisan solutions to the problems facing North Carolina today. The press couldn't bring itself to at least consider the fact that not all the maneuvering in matters of across-the-aisle political consultation is controlled by the Democratic Party.

You could not then and still cannot today find a Capitol Press Corps reporter from a print or broadcast news organization willing to talk with state Republican insiders on just what personal and political penalties can be meted out to an individual Republican lawmaker who wishes to move beyond in-the-loop GOP oversight and regimentation of its own ranks in order to make a bold step toward creating even a temporary bi-partisan alliance with a legislator from the other party to move ahead on the agenda of the day.

Thus we are left with a virtual "winner-take-all" attitude toward the partisan conduct of legislative affairs which leaves the eventual minority party after any given election wondering just what it takes to get a paragraph or two inserted into a bill under current consideration in committee or on the floor. And oh, just remember how many editorials you have read decrying this way of running the General Assembly of the Old North State.

So to get yourself a blogspot award from the N.C. Press Association, just remember: be one-sided, provocative and rude in regard to the person or organization you are opposing and thus by providing the press with a reprise of the Rip Van Wink at the News, carry home the plaudits and kudos which otherwise wouls have accrued to reporters and editorial writers willing to look more deeply into the politics of the Capital City.

Then at the very end, the FBI went unchallenged editorially by the North Carolina press by coming out with a flip statement to the effect that a federal facility like Butner in this state cannot really be considered for serving a prison sentence and also providing timely and appropriate medical services in a case whose merits for that service are clear and obvious. No, North Carolina is just "a throw-away state" and not on equal footing with the other states in the Union, because "real states" like West Virginia and Pennsylvania are the ones which can meet the exigencies and responsibilities of the situation.

What we are seeing is the demotion of the ranking of state government in North Carolina vis-a-vis state governments in the other 49 states in the Union so that the practitioners of national partisan politics will have some extra political footballs to kick around, with some federal judicial officials having the luxury of practicing their place-kicking throughout the year.

David McKnight--Durham