Friday, June 27, 2008

Dropping the Pilot

There had been rumors of tensions between Republican Chairman Steve Minarik and County Executive Maggie Brooks, but what happened today came as a complete shock.

As Joe Morelle said in reaction to the news, "Steve Minarik single-handedly rebuilt the local Republican Party."  Therefore, for Monroe County, Brooks asking Minarik to go is as big a deal as Kaiser Wilhelm II firing Bismarck, who unified and created the German nation, from the office of Chancellor.

Whom will this hurt?   Whom will it help?

Lucy, our fellow-blogger, has been doing fieldwork to get more of the inside story.   Until we learn more, we remain, for once, speechless.   So, for the moment, to mark this event, we'll publish the 1890 cartoon captioned "Dropping the Pilot," depicting the Kaiser watching Bismarck disembarking from the ship of state.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What I find interesting (and disturbing as a partisan), is the claim that Brooks is seeking someone who is more "bipartisan".

That would be great if the local dems indicated any bipartisanship and there was some real chance at decent discourse, etc. However, the recent public defender and MCC fiascos, among others, show that the local dems are playing this game for keeps, and any backing off by the local GOP is going to do nothing but backfire.

This idea that ONLY or primarily the GOP and Minarik are partisans, while the dems are just interested in cooperation and good gov't is so laughable as to be insulting. The fact that the local media (D&C) pushes this idea, and that anyone buys it, is funny. But, if Brooks buys such a ridiculous claim then I have lost confidence in her mental capacity.

My guess is that she is just saying that hoping for some good p.r., but saying such a thing perpetuates the false meme and gives it credence, which does not help.

I'm not claiming that the local GOP is not partisan, just that both sides are equally partisan and no one party "started" it or is worse than the other.

But, it is idiotic that whenever the local dems fight on some issue, they are described as standing on "principal" and when the local GOP fights on an issue - they are merely being partisan.

The only way that a GOPer gets labled bipartisan in the local press is if he/she simply concedes to whatever a dem wants. We cannot give in to this claim and we can't feed it - which is whay Brooks' statements are doing.

- Great Banana