Dumb Dog

Kevin Richert wants to know if you really want the newspaper to be a watchdog or do they just say they do:

Reading both stories as objectively as I can — even though I’m a Statesman editor, albeit one with no say over news coverage — both stories pass my watchdog test. They expose some questionable public spending that should concern us all.

To Craig’s staffers, these bonuses weren’t exactly chump change — the largest bonus was $36,000. Not big bucks in the Monopoly money world of the Beltway, but a fair chunk of change nonetheless. And the bonuses point to a larger trend on Capitol Hill. Craig isn’t the only retiring lawmaker to award such pay raises, with little fanfare and no form of checks and balances.

That’s why I find the bonuses troubling. This story has nothing to do with the well-documented circumstances surrounding Craig’s retirement. It has to do with how elected officials spend your money while they’re heading out the door.

Do people want watchdogs? Yes.  However, the whole Craig bonus story reminds me of the old Laugh-In line (and yeah, I only saw it in reruns,) “Very interesting, but stupid.”

So Craig paid some staffers a bonus. In and of itself, to quote Garfield, “Big, fat, hairy deal.”  Now, had there been someone come forward and say that they couldn’t stand working for Larry Craig after this and that they would go and blab things to the press that would ruin Craig forever and Craig gave a $30,000 bonus to keep them quiet, that’d be news.

As it is, what do we have. Several staffers were paid a bonus for remaining on staff with an office that was suddenly going out of business. I called for Craig to resign at the time, but I’ve got no quarrel with paying people a little extra to not abandon ship and give Idaho the best constituent service as long as possible.

However, the story reminds people of the fact that bothers many Idahoans: Larry Craig was from Idaho.

However, heretofore the Statesman has ignored several stories around Ada County and the City of Boise. You want to know what’s really going on at City Hall, read the Boise Guardian. Save the Idaho Statesman for when you run out of liner for the bottom of your cat’s litter box. At the national level, they’ve shown a total lack of interest in the links between the contributions of a powerful member of Congress who is under investigation by the House Ethics committee. They’ve shown a total lack of interest with anything having to do with Minnick’s fundraising, no matter how legitimate the story.

The Idaho Statesman isn’t a good watchdog, it’s a dumb dog, that often only reports important stories after blogs have broken them and they become too big to ignore. 

A dumb dog will do things like bark at your neighbor whose lived next door for 40 years and then remain absolutely silent while a stranger burgles the house. This is a good picture of the Idaho Statesman.