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June 26, 2010 07:43 PM UTC

Markey vs. Gardner: The Problem with Selective Outrage

  • 28 Comments
  • by: davidsirota

NOTE: We will be discussing this story with the editor of the Ft. Collins Coloradoan on the AM760 morning show on Monday. Tune in from 7-10am on your radio dial or on the web at www.am760.net.

Colorado Republican candidate Cory Gardner has taken his share of well-deserved local and national media flack from progressives (including from me on my radio show) for holding a fundraiser with energy lobbyists. He undoubtedly deserves the criticism he’s received (and on a personal note, just remember that I’ve said repeatedly on the radio that I hope he loses in 2010 in part because he’d be a far worse vote on energy issues than his Democratic opponent). However, the problem with outrage at corruption is when it is applied selectively.

Here’s what I mean: It’s perfectly fine – even admirable – to criticize Gardner for sucking up to energy interests, as long as the same voices expressing outrage at him express outrage at his Democratic opponent, Rep. Betsy Markey, for engaging in something very similar earlier in the same week. Note this report from the Ft. Collins Coloradoan:

Betsy Markey’s re-election campaign will get a boost from one of the Democratic Party’s top fundraisers, a former party official now working as an energy industry lobbyist.

Brian Wolff, a former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who’s currently senior vice president of external affairs for the Edison Electric Institute, volunteered to help Markey raise money and develop re-election strategy…

Wolff helped organize a meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month in which a number of the party’s top fundraisers – many of them lobbyists – agreed to help 16 of the party’s most vulnerable incumbents, according to an article in Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill.

Although lobbyists have long been major donors to political campaigns, Roll Call quoted unnamed participants in the meeting as saying this level of involvement in congressional campaigns was new.

While the Markey story was reported in one local paper, it didn’t generate nearly as much residual huffing and puffing from other media or the blogosphere as the Gardner story did. And in that disparity, there’s a larger lesson, especially because this kind of selective outrage is so common.

Anger at lawmakers for their all-too-close ties to the industries they regulate is justified in this age of corruption. But pretending that corruption is the disease of only one party is to try to suck the last shreds of honesty out of our already debased political debate. That undeniable truth may offend partisans (for example, I bet you’ll see Democratic activists whining and moaning about this post, somehow insisting energy lobbyists’ cash given to both parties only ends up influencing Republican recipients but not Democratic recipients) – but, alas, it is the undeniable truth.

Yes, be angry at corruption – but at least be honest about it and apply your outrage equally across the political spectrum when it is warranted. Otherwise, you are just adding to the destructive substance-free noise that has turned our politics into a red-versus-blue tribal war of attrition – one that ignores the real underlying problems.

Comments

28 thoughts on “Markey vs. Gardner: The Problem with Selective Outrage

  1. Cory Gardner would not, under any circumstance, have voted for Waxman-Markey. Betsy did. Cory Gardner would not vote for one single regulation of the oil drillers. Betsy has, and will.

    You’re engaging in the game that makes the mainstream media so deeply corrupt–false equivalency.

    1. It’s funny – present facts about energy lobbyists, and instead of partisans responding with an acknowledgement of the facts, they present non-sequiturs. As usual, the truth hurts so much that instead of dealing with it, partisans will try to change the subject. Pretty funny.

        1. Hardly. Money corrupts. Insisting that money from energy lobbyists only corrupts Republicans but not Democrats is absurd – and, as I said, funny.

          Petulant? No. Just the facts, as Joe Friday says.

          1. How much money did Governor Brian Schweitzer pay you to work on his campaign while he was simultaneously working for the passage of an anti-gay marriage amendment to that state’s constitution, David?  

            What was the price for you to invalidate your stated political position in favor of gay marriage?

            You are right.  Money does corrupt…and you are one person who has been corrupted by it.

            1. David Sirota was really quick to respond to all those other comments… where’s his response here?

              Dude is a hackjob self promoter, his show is terrible (I think it’s like 30th of 32 or something during that time block) and he’s just looking to stoke controversy. His show is poorly rated because what he has to say sucks: it isn’t interesting, insight, or intelligent. It’s just whining garbage. His written columns suck too, since he isn’t a very good writer.

              Since Sirota worked on House appropriations (I think? Correct me if I’m wrong…), he probably knows something about corruption. Have any other shining examples of you selling out that you’d like to share with us, David?

          1. Pols gets more traffic than HuffPo Denver? Not like I’m surprised though. This is pretty much par for the course for David. Maybe he’ll even throw in a comment later about us having a conversation about him days later and how that means we have wayyyyy too much time on our hands.

          1. As the saying goes “if you can’t drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against ’em anyway, you don’t belong in office”.

            While I’ll never be on any politician’s speed dial, I’ve given more money to her campaign than I have for even Hick or Bennet.

            1. Not that there’s anything wrong with carpet munching (which a term used with love–being a pole smoker myself), but I am pretty sure Betsy doesn’t swing that way.

              But on all the other stuff, hell yeah.

  2. The last time I ran into Sirota I asked him not to frag my candidates.

    I understand that he has to make his living by writing something catchy, and Rush does too.

    But here in the 4th Congressional District, the territory has been ruled by one party for so long that any argument of two party corruption is a Rovian construct. It is a tactical lie.

    Hope it makes you money, dude.

    1. Then why is Romanoff running? True liberals have been turned off by the corporate money that Dems accepted in order to win. Now Dems are just as much or more in debt to the big corporations as Republicans. Pop quiz: who did BP give the most to in the 2008 election?

          1. I just don’t want some unsuspecting reader believing that you’re a pro-Romanoff Democrat, as opposed to the bedwetting Republican concern troll that you actually are.

  3. political players but it seems completely irresponsible to say that ALL energy companies are evil. Even if this Edison Electric Institute was buying Markey off with heaps and heaps of money, they don’t seem to be getting their money’s worth. Markey still introduced and passed her climate change bill without batting an eye.

    This post was completely disingenuous. There may be examples of Big Oil giving money to Colorado Dems. Doesn’t mean they’re “bought” the way Gardner is though.

  4. are holding court on Huffington Post.  Irritated me, so posted a comment, using some points from a couple of you here, and one of my own:

    By what stretch do you make the The Edison Electric Institute the equivalent of British Petroleum? The Edison Electric Institute is the association of U.S. shareholder-owned electric companies. U.S., not foreign. Shareholder owned. Not drilling for oil in the Gulf. You didn’t include this information. You just threw in the name of the organization Wolf works for now and said “energy industry” so all the knee jerk reactions would commence.

    I cannot respect this kind of writing. Demonizing anyone, anywhere who works in any capacity to supply us with the energy we depend on. Like hospitals, ya know, need electricity? You waste your time tearing down all our legislators, nobody is pure enough. You make specious arguments like this so voters will become even more cynical, say “they’re all the same” and refuse to vote. What progressive values are you really working for?

    1. Nor are the corporations it represents more American, nor are they more “shareholder owned.”

      They are as anti-environment as BP as well.

      The two major differences are that Edison did not spill millions of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and as a result is not on the hook for $20B+ in liability unless they elect politicians who think they were subject to a “shakedown” and think we need “tort reform,” and that Betsy Markey is not a stooge of the electric utilities. She opposed them on the bill they said would drive them out of business and cause socialism to reign throughout the ages.

      The difference is that Betsy is good, and Gardner is bad. BP thinks they can buy themselves some liability caps and continued lax regulation with Gardner, and Edison thinks (rightly) they can get an infusion of cash from the federal government to accelerate the transition to renewables now that we’re headed down the path they opposed.

      1. Edison thinks (rightly) they can get an infusion of cash from the federal government to accelerate the transition to renewables now that we’re headed down the path they opposed.

        Given the billions this infrastructure upgrade requires, I’ll be happy as long as the money goes to the purpose for which it is intended.  I’m not so naive to think Edison isn’t looking out for their (and their shareholders’) best interests. It’s just that, cynical or not, their best interests appear to lie in the direction of less coal and oil, and more renewables.

        BP, on the otherhand, appears to have knowingly violated both the law and common sense by not employing the appropriate safety and engineering practices for deep water drilling.

        1. The utilities’ books are a bit more open given how regulated the industry is.

          Not that that’s stopped them from questionable spending of regulated money–one of the utilities recently itemized a luxury resort junket for executives as one of their justifications for raising rates.

      2. But certainly didn’t mean to imply that EEI doesn’t spend tons on lobbying, or that it doesn’t look out for the interests of its shareholders.  I guess I’d have to dig a lot deeper to find out if they’re truly as anti-environment as BP.  Since you end by saying they’re now trying to accelerate the transition to renewables, perhaps there is currently some degree of separation.

        Anyway, I still don’t think Sirota should have thrown them up as a complete equivalent of BP, to try to make an equivalence of badness Markey to Gardner.

        1. Because the government, including Betsy Markey, made them be different.

          It’s now in their business interests to pursue renewables because of the laws passed already (primarily the stimulus and the Obama budget) and will be even more so when a climate bill passes (and it will) and a price is put on carbon.

          The utilities are strange animals. They vociferously opposed the renewable energy standard ballot initiative in Colorado, and now they (well Xcel anyway) now fully support the renewable energy standard, and even increasing it. Because with the stick came the carrot– profit, as a result of incentives, subsidies, and streamlined regulations to accelerate and reduce the cost of the transition.

  5. I don’t know if Davey considers himself a journalist, but this piece disqualifies him from the title.

    Like El Rushbo, each is an entertainer who stirs up outrage to drive ratings and sell more ads (OK maybe not so much the later in Dave’s case.)

    No journalist worth his salt, nor any periodical with the most basic editorial standards would print this piece with its last two paragraphs.

    Sirota mentions corruption three times without so much as qualifying the term with “appearance of.”  To stand as corruption, taking lobbyists’ money must provide a pro quo for taking all that quid.  Our boy doesn’t even suggest that Markey has provided any return on investment for energy industry dollars.

    He’s carrying intellectual (the irony!)  water for the Romanoff argument that taking corporate cash inherently makes one corrupt even absent actual evidence of corruption.  It’s the most pathetic thing about the Romanoff campaign, but just like in that case, it’s just one pathetic behavior among many.

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