every (p)article has spin

By Todd Stadler · Tuesday, July 24, 2001 5:59pm

Over the past week, I've been reading about Dick Cheney's electrical bill.

To summarize, Democrats are outraged that he is attempting to make the Navy foot the bill instead of taking $186,000 out of his own budget, especially in a time when many Americans face rising electrical bills that they wish they didn't have to pay. Left-wingers allege that this is the utmost in hypocrisy from a man who once poo-pooed conservation as a solution to the "energy crisis".

I'd been hearing a lot about that. So I was somewhat surprised to read a column by David Reinhard in my paper that had a different take on the issue.

It said, in so many words, that this hubbub was pure liberal spin. First of all, whether the check comes from the Navy or the Vice President, it's still signed by the taxpayers. But more importantly, the article said, this practice of making the Navy pay part of the bill occurred before, under Gore, with nary a peep from the media. And to top it off, electricity use in the vice presidential mansion declined by a third under Cheney's occupancy, compared to when Gore was there.

Well! This was a different spin on things. I had heard none of these facts, and as such I rushed off a letter to the columnist, thanking him for a fresh perspective. I also had a question for him.

Mr. Reinhard's column vilified the New York Times for its "pattern of day-to-day politicized reporting" in which, it would seem, it does little more than spit out columns attacking Republicans. Of course there is no doubt as to the political leanings of that paper. But why, I asked, had he made no mention of an earlier political cartoon by Jack Ohman, the Oregonian's in-house cartoonist, which portrayed Cheney as a hypocrite much as the Times had?

The response I received was short: "Because the NYT started this and Jack is my friend and he works for my paper."

Ah, I see now. Well, as long as Mr. Reinhard isn't letting politics interfere with his reporting, then I suppose everything's fine.

Hypocrite.