***EXCLUSIVE! MUST CREDIT PROTEIN WISDOM****
Dan Collins sends along this AP story, that for all its probing can’t seem to pinpoint the party affiliation of Minnesota state Senate President James Metzen:
The president of the state Senate was arrested on drunken driving charges hours after gaveling the 2007 session to a close and then apparently celebrating at an inn favored by government workers.
James Metzen was stopped in his sport utility vehicle early Tuesday after an officer observed him weaving in his lane, South St. Paul Police Chief Michael Messerich said. The stop occurred less than a mile from his house.
Metzen was given a field sobriety test and was arrested. His blood-alcohol level was 0.15 percent, almost twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent. He faces two misdemeanor charges, including fourth-degree driving while impaired.
“Sen. Metzen was given no special treatment, nor did he request any special treatment,” Messerich said. “He was treated like anyone else.”
Metzen, 61, a seven-term senator from South St. Paul, told officers he had three or four drinks, Messerich said.
Metzen’s attorney, Paul Rogosheske, told the Star Tribune [*] of Minneapolis the senator had been at Kelly Inn, a favorite haunt of the Capitol crowd, before heading home.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, Metzen apologized “for my lapse in judgment.” He said he had attended a celebratory gathering with his peers after leaving the Capitol and used bad judgment.
Metzen has drawn attention for alcohol-related issues before.
In 2004, a Twin Cities television station aired a hidden-camera report on drinking at the Capitol. At one point, the footage showed a House member and lobbyists drinking in Metzen’s office.
Well, at least the police seem willing to treat him like anyone else. But the AP? Not so much.
—Or else, maybe I’m just being too hard on the AP. Because finding that piece of information can be a bit tricky, unless you are—like me—and experienced user of “the Internets”.
For the record—and using a complex search algorithm developed by a group of computer nerds in somebody’s porn-ridden garage, more than likely—protein wisdom was able to enter “James Metzen” into a “search engine” and come up with these preliminary results (replicating, he assumes, the technique used by his original source). From there, he was able to further pin down his target query, using something called “Wikipedia”—an open source (and not always reliable, admittedly) “internet site”—which revealed the following about Mr Metzen:
James P. Metzen (born October 26, 1943) is the current President of the Minnesota Senate in the U.S. state of Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, was first elected to the State Senate in 1986, and represents the 39th Senate District. He resides in South St. Paul, Minnesota. Metzen served in the Minnesota House of Representatives for 12 years prior to his election to the Senate.
Still, a CITIZEN JOURNALIST is never content to rely on a single source—even if that “single source” is policed by market forces within the information sphere.
So, in order to avoid finding out later that this “Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party” Senate president was really named Jamil XX and wore a green helmet, protein wisdom dug a bit deeper, acting on the initial information provided by his first source.
Again, using the “Google” tool, protein wisdom “entered” the following in the “search box”— “James Metzen Democrat”—which “search” yielded a dizzying array of results, among them, one from a site called “Answers.com” (which, given that I was looking for an “answer”, seemed rather promising). And sure enough, I found, under “Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party,” this:
Current elected officials
* Senator Amy Klobuchar
* Secretary of State Mark Ritchie
* Auditor Rebecca Otto
* Attorney General Lori Swanson
* President of the Senate James Metzen
* Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Margaret Anderson Kelliher
* Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller
* Minnesota House of Representatives Majority Leader Tony Sertich
[my emphasis]
Curiously, my search yielded the same AP story cited above, printed in the Bellingham Herald. The phrase “Metzen, a Democrat,” appears in the blurb attached to the search result —
The Bellingham Herald / AP Nation / Minn. lawmaker arrested, charged
James Metzen was stopped in his sport-utility vehicle around 2 am after an officer observed him … Metzen, a Democrat, didn’t immediately return a call. …
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/354/story/85086.html – May 22, 2007 – Similar pages – Note this —
—but that same phrase, as of this writing, doesn’t appear anywhere in the story itself.
I can only guess that this is some “Google” “glitch”—or that some Rovian hacker is playing politics with a man who, regardless of his party affiliation, is clearly crying out for help. Or a double bourbon, rocks. It’s really hard to be sure, what with all the slurring.
Still, the public has a right to know™—and protein wisdom stands by its original reporting, though it doubts very much it can bring itself to care any more about this particular case.
So you are on your own from here. Or else, you might try Pravda for additional information—which I hear is fairly reliable, too, when it comes to these matters.
For comparison, here’s another AP story in which you have to read all the way down to the . . . first word for the accused’s party affiliation.
And this is important why? Because all Democrats are drunks? Because Republicans never get caught doing the same thing? Because this is the first Democrat to be caught doing this?
I mean really… is this the point that party bickering has come down to? Because really, being a drunk and a moron is not unique to being a Democrat, no matter how much Ted Kennedy tries to make it seem otherwise.
Yeah, I linked a search that showed that one, too.
I did a similar search using “Democrat” and it revealed plenty—from any newspaper that had in its name the word “Democrat.”
It’s not important at all, Nick.
Just helping the AP get its facts out there so that we CITIZENS can remain informed.
After all, they do have a history of posting party affiliation when reporting on drunk driving arrests—and I’d hate to see them accused of bias by omission.
Clearly, this was an oversight.
I’m just doing my part for the common weal.
So, I guess Jeff’s last comment pretty much answers your question, Nick?
So, the AP knows what the Star Tribune wrote. How did they miss Metzen’s political affiliation, since it’s in the first paragraph of the Strib story?
I can’t recall…what was that child-molesting Tom Foley’s party-affiliation?
Seems it wasn’t mentioned much. Was it?
Party affiliation is immaterial, as Nick points out.
The AP was being careful not to play politics with a man’s life!
In seriousness, though, I don’t much care. But some consistency would certainly be nice. Without it, somebody might get the wrong idea about the motives of the mainstream press.
And I want nothing more than for the press to maintain its integrity.
In so far as my questions were really rhetorical… sure he answers them. But ya’ll knew that already.
I’ve often pondered about this. Are they all trained to do this automatically in journo school, with perhaps multiple choice questions such as:
A Republican Congressman is involved in a drunk driving accident. Where do you place the story?
a. Banner headline, page A-1
b. Page A-1, Below Fold
c. Page A-3, Large Headline
d. Page A-23, Bottom of page, 1 column inch.
*Mark* Foley – I think Tom was some old guy in Washington maybe
You are missing the larger issue here. The post is not a commentary on Democrats and drinking.
Do you remember any controversy over Cheney’s relationship to Halliburton? Of course. It is almost impossible to overstate the level of hysteria on the Left over those allegations, fed almost daily by the MSM. One would think that the fate of the Republic itself was at stake, so important was this issue.
Well, it turns out that most of those allegations were unfounded, but there was one powerful politician steering billions of dollars in defense-related business to corporations with which she had a conflict of interest: Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. Heard anything about that?
If the Halliburton issue was so important, then why isn’t the DiFi story important? If the Halliburton story wasn’t so important after all, then why did it have to dominate the discussion over Iraq policy for about two years?
The post is trying to make you conscious of the media’s power as the gatekeeper, deciding which facts are relevent and important, and which ones are not.
What, they couldn’t even find someone to Photoshop in his party affiliation?
I’m really disgusted by these disgraceful and outrageous partisan political hitjobs. There was no reason to even mention this because it doesn’t affect his lawmaking, just his personal life. Everybody does it. It was just two drinks – everybody lies about drinking. Republicans have DWI’s too, and I don’t hear you condemning them so your argument is invalid. Newt Gingrich! They haven’t proven anything. Lots of innocent people have a .15 breathalyzer result. Glenn Greenwald was quoted in the floor of the Senate! The cops who arrested him are a little bit nutty, a little bit slutty. What’s the definition of drunk driving anyhow? If you don’t really feel drunk, you aren’t drunk and shouldn’t be charged. Nobody ever mentioned Mark Foley’s, Jack Abramoff’s, Duke Cunningham or Bob Ney’s party affiliation, ever, not even when they ran for office and had their names on the ballot. Etc…
/S
DNC Talking Points Generator
Why, in all of your rhetorical questions, Nick, do you not ask something like, “Because we expect a measure of balance from the Associated Press when stories like this are reported upon?”
Because I think that gets more to the point of the post.
I don’t generally do the party bickering thing, because there’s plenty about the GOP I am far less than thrilled with.
In this case, I just found it amusing, is all.
You can tell the guy was really, really drunk, because he didn’t say that he’d had “a couple” of drinks. Every cop knows that “a couple” means six or seven, and “three or four?” Let’s just say that had he not been stopped when he was, he’d have been found later after passing out in his car while waiting for a stop sign to turn green.
Not that I’ve ever done anything like that, I’m just sayin’.
Bugs Bunny (to Pete Puma): “How many lumps?”
Pete Puma: “Errm. Three or four.”
It is worthy of special note because of stuff like this. Why is it that liberals can blithely attribute evil to party affiliation, but then get all self-righteousy when their own are caught breaking the law?
Heavens, no, and the patron saint of Chappaquiddick immediately comes to mind.
Funny thing, Jeff.
I did a google search on “Bull” Connor one time.
Had a heck of a time finding out his party affiliation.
Wikipedia, however, has it right up front.
Thanks Happyfeet!
It was just one brief encounter, and I can’t be asked to remember all of their names!!
(Shoulda Googled it, huh?)
If you were a Democrat, you would have three or four before heading home too. Unless you were a Mooslim Democrat. They never touch the stuff.
No, No, No, NO!!!
This man could not be a Democrat! The Democratic Party is the party that is bringing ETHICS BACK TO GOVERNMENT!! THEY HAVE A MANDATE!!
Besides, it’s the Democratic Farmer/Laborer Party. He’s obviously one of the farmers or laborers.
If an “R” you don’t see,
you will know, it’s a “D”
with apologies for not being haiku.
TW: Thank heaven john73 is not me.
Look what you’ve made me do!
The MSM went apeshit that Cheney drank “A” beer at lunch before the duck hunting accident and the sorosphere – being all fact based- turned it into he was drunk and an alcoholic – yet Patches Kennedy is ramming his car into barricades dangerously missing a cop in the good old Kennedy tradition and it doesn’t even register with the sorostards.
Because they are soulless hacks whose only talent is to trump up mock outrage if they think it will advance in their only true goal to obtain power?
With all due respect, Jeff, “consistency” isn’t what you should be looking for.
If a story is accusatory and the accused’s party affiliation isn’t stated in the lede, the guy’s a Democrat. If the piece is complimentary, and no party is mentioned in the first few sentences, it’s a Republican (who is almost certainly agreeing with a Democrat, or the story wouldn’t appear, but that’s neither here nor there.) Consistency we have, in spades. In fact, it’s achieved the status of a convention, a commonplace elision of information it would be otiose to recount because everybody knows what’s going on.
Heh.
Regards,
Ric
Hey, N. O’Brain,
Good work. Now try modern racists: David Duke, Strom Thurmond (it’s a bit tricky, as his politics didn’t change, but his party did…he had to follow the crackers), Jesse Helms (see above), and I can provide a better list.
See the Dems did a fine job booting racists and watching them migrate over to the Republicans (election drubbings have a way of motivating folks).
That’s why a Democratic presidential debate features a mix mash of colors and ethnicities and the Republican presidential debate features the “diversity” of PW posters (all male, all white, and some crazies to represent Tancredo).
History, you can use it to obscure (WE”RE STILL IN GERMANY!!) or you can use it to illuminate. What a wonderful tool.
Check out this link * I know, I know, it’s a link from 2005 and it’s not from 40 years ago, but I sort of liked the “trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” It’s an apt turn of phrase to explain why all the Southern whites who didn’t like the Civil Rights of 1964 and every following act, decided being Republican was the way to go. Both parties have a reason to be ashamed of their pasts…that’s what history teaches me.
PS Before the normal readers get all annoyed, I’m not saying all Republicans are racists. I will not even accuse any current Republicans of racism. I am not accusing Jeff, certainly, or any other PW poster of being racist toward African Americans. I was just noting neither party has clean hands when it comes to race.
PS. And Jeff’s right, the AP story should have mentioned his party, not because party affiliation means anything to the crime, but so he can be identified properly by readers.
Haaaa, Dan. Possibly my favorite Warner Bros. cartoon moment ever.
timmy,
A bit of advice: next time you do that, reverse the order—that is, make the postscript the lede. That way it doesn’t look quite so much like what it is, viz., a desperate attempt at handwaving to change the subject (Look! Over there! <i>Racists!)
Regards,
Ric
I just went and googled “Minnesota State Senate”, found the members list, ran down it and found this.
All in under fifteen seconds.
That’s rich. In a breathless comment pointing out all of the racists “over there” timmy indulges in his own racism/ethnicism/classism.
The entertainment value of this place is priceless!
I’ll take, “Reasons Why Timmy forgot Robert Byrd and Cynthia McKinney” for $1000, Alex.
He’s obviously one of the farmers or laborers.
Wicked awesome, dude.
“Reasons Why Timmy forgot Robert Byrd and Cynthia McKinneyâ€Â
Ms. McKinney cannot be racist, as she is black. That is still “true”, isn’t it?
[T]immy’s comment reminds me of what struck me gob smacked the most by “Journey’s With George”. It revealed, at least to me, the true mean spiritedness of the press towards Republicans in general and W in particular. While before I had just thought the press to be blinded by their own biases, scenes like the bologna sandwich/ Republican candidate comparison showed something much deeper and more sinister.
Well, so long as we’re allowing the change of subject —
My grandmother was a liberal, in the context of her time and place (it was, after all, the Old South). In particular she would never have even thought the word “nigger”, let alone let it pass her lips, and she was always ready with an immediate, and stinging, rebuke for anyone who so transgressed.
Sometime in 1958 or ‘59, IIRC, I committed that error in her hearing, and she brought me up short for it. “You have to be kind to the Negroes[1],” she added. “They can’t do for themselves the way white people can.”
That principle is now the official, engraved-in-stone policy of the Democratic Party, with sharp penalties for anyone who strays off the reservation in either direction. “Affirmative action”, once a directive to search for qualified people who had been missed due to stereotyped and/or bigoted assumptions, has morphed into a frank admission that even though black people are by and large unwilling and unable to do the job we must pretend they are (and pay them accordingly) or suffer penalties, and any black person who violates the requirements by becoming qualified is pilloried as “not authentically black”, with special vilification for anyone who beats back the indoctrination provided by our liberal educational establishment and learns to speak standard English and conform to the White Establishment’s rules for success. (It’s notable, in the latter connection, that Barack Obama was not educated in the United States.)
In 1964, Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act in a two-to-one ratio over their Democratic colleagues. “Crackers” who wished to change over had to conform to that ethic, and even though many of them preserved (regrettably) the habits of speech they’d learned as children and young adults, the vast majority did so conform. The result is that Bill Clinton, “our first black President,” proved his anti-racist credentials by having not one black appointee to a position of power, whereas the irredeemably racist George W. Bush has a black Secretary of State in his Cabinet.
So accusations of racism leave me totally unmoved. It is sufficient, nowadays, to require and celebrate competence and diligence over “authenticity” to earn the sobriquet, and I for one wear it with at least a little pride.
Regards,
Ric
[1] this was long before “black” was required in liberal discourse. Had it been available, she would have used it; and, of course, in that accent a long “E” is strongly disfavored and a terminal “A” is an aleph, so what she actually said was something like “Nihgrahs”. You can’t sue her. She died in 1979.
“otiose”
Hee! Lovely word. I also learned a lovely word yesterday, ”panopticon,” which Lileks used to describe the Internet.
The Panopticon was a Victorian prison design allowing all of the prisoners to be observed easily by the guards.
“All-seeing”; although I think Lileks didn’t quite mean it in the prison sense, it is appropriate in that we are imprisoned in the net, and all can see what we have said and done. The internet would be the most insidious type of prison for any to monitor the inhabitants, though. Your freedom to express, see, discover, is our tool to monitor you.
Fie upon your “otiose”.
I’ll take “elision” over “otiose” any day of the week.
Man, I love this place.
Well, I’m very anti-Clinton and Secretary of Commerce is not exactly a cabinet position of power and Ron Brown did die tragically under somewhat questionable circumstances, but Clinton had at least a token black in a token position of power, eh? I mean, until he tragically died in a plane crash in a country having easily-bribable officials, eh?
Timmah, Duke started as a Democrat. When he switched parties and ran for Congress, the Republicans refused to endorse him, and, in fact, endorsed his Democrat opponent.
Meanwhile, Al Sharpton is, inexplicably, treated with respect by Democrats, despite being a race-baiter who has caused more deaths than Duke ever did (so far as I know).
And let’s not forget that Duke is currently with the anti-war truthers. He even went so far as to join up with the Mother Sheehan Show outside Crawford.
In the interest of fairness, if you go to the AP’s web site and search for “Metzen,” you will get this link, http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LAWMAKER_ARRESTED?SITE=CTDAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT, which says “Metzen, 61, a seven-term Democratic senator from South St. Paul, told officers he had three or four drinks” in the 5th paragraph.
I kinda like the moderately sh*t-eating grin in his booking photo, altho the effect is spoiled by his tie. Tom DeLay did a much better job, then again, he went to the police station for his booking under his own power.
And the Strib itself, at http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1203054.html lists his party affiliation in the first sentence.
I knew one of you would mention Byrd. Goldstein, Byrd apologized for his past conduct and beliefs over the course of the last 60 years. Good of you to remember it. Here’s a book review, if you’re interested in fairness: Pianin, Eric. “A Senator’s Shame: Byrd, in His New Book, Again Confronts Early Ties to KKK”, Washington Post, 2005-06-19.
As for Ms. McKinney, is she a current member of Congress? She’s a clown and was treated like one, instead of being elected Senate Majority Leader or head of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate.
Oh, and Mikey, much like Cynthia McKinney isn’t called a racist because she’s black, I can’t be called racist for having disdain for my own people. Check out the racist tendencies evidence in this article on voting trends in the South. If calling southerners who flee the Dem party because they don’t cotton to black folk “crackers” is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
As for Bill Clinton vs Bush. I don’t recall calling the President a racist. I don’t think he cares much one way or the other. Then again, I’m sort of willing to let the African-American population determine where their interest lies in this subject (much like I will glad to watch where the Hispanic population determines which party holds it interests).
President Edwards is going to have a growing number of supporters for his 2012 re-election campaign, just ask Pete Wilson and the California Republicans.
President Edwards is going to have a growing number of supporters for his 2012 re-election campaign
Spit take!
I can’t say I’m surprised you’d rather be wrong than change your opinion to fit the facts.
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