What Liberal Media?

The Seattle Post-Liberal-Intelligencer, always scrupulous about publishing multiple opinions on every important topic, carried two op-eds today on the Texas redistricting flap. The first, from the unbiased Adam Cohen of the objective New York Times, entitled GOP power grab is part of a trend

Republicans, who now control all three branches of the federal government, are not just pushing through their political agenda. They are increasingly ignoring the rules of government to do it.

Which rules? Are they laws, or merely conventions? Are the rules being broken, or merely changed by the majority party? Cohen doesn't say, but I have my hunches.

Texas Republicans seized control of the Legislature last year

emphasis mine. Did they seize control in the same way that Mussolini seized control of Italy, or are the people of Texas simply fleeing from the Democrats toward the Republicans in massive numbers? Cohen doesn't say. Nor does Cohen ask the following question, so I will ask it for him: Have Democrats ever used their majority power to help themselves to a favorable redistricting plan? Answer: Of course they haven't.

The other op-ed, presented directly below the first one in an apparent attempt to offer "balance", is from Marianne Means, entitled Democrats did what they had to do

to Democrats in Texas and elsewhere, the stalemate was serious business. Extreme partisan measures require extreme responses. The insane gerrymandering masterminded by DeLay would have handed the GOP several additional congressional seats and denied fair representation to many voters

Somewhere you might find a credible, non-partisan, fact-filled discussion of the Texas redistricting saga, but that somewhere will not be on the pages of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 29, 2003 11:19 PM