Tuesday, February 09, 2010

The Snooze can't work out the Kinks in their endorsement

It is truly a remarkable day for the New Media when my friend Neil at Texas Liberal trumps the Dallas Morning News in the logic associated with their respective endorsements for Texas commissioner of agriculture.

But don't take my word for it...

In the contested Democratic primary for Agriculture Commissioner, the Dallas Morning News has endorsed Kinky Friedman over Hank Gilbert. Well, maybe we should say: The News has opposed Gilbert over Friedman, since the editorial is more of a knock on the former than an attaboy to the latter.

I don't know who over at the Kingdom of Belo wrote that endorsement, but they have lost their f'ing minds. Essentially the DMN doesn't care about details. They just like cigars.

The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board must be smoking crack for endorsing Kinky Friedman in the Democratic Primary for Agriculture Commissioner. One thing the DMN didn't remember is that Friedman is not a Democrat. Never has been. Never will be. You would think if you were going to endorse a Democrat, endorse one that is actually a Democrat and one that knows something about what he is running for.

Forget, for a moment, the mischaracterization of Hank's position on global trade (he's for FAIR not FREE trade... I think we can all agree that the effect of free trade has been detrimental on balance to this country as we've seen GDP go up and wage growth stagnate). The issue is Hank's opposition to impounding, under water, 72,000 acres of productive land in East Texas. And what the DMN failed to mention is that the water district that covers Dallas is the most wasteful in the state.

Hank's position, which he made clear, was to enhance conservation and begin building desalinization plants capable of producing the water that Texas needs. For one thing, desertification is becoming a problem in Texas and rainfall more and more erratic. In point of fact, reservoirs are just not going to cut it. We need a better solution and pressure exchange desalinization is very cheap and very easy. Who knows, maybe our good buddy on the Ed Board William McKenzie just hasn't been keeping up with changes in technology.

There's only one person who deserves to be the Democratic nominee for ag commissioner, and it's not Kinky Friedman.

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