This editorial by the St. Cloud Times’ Editorial Board is a study in how the Agenda Media attempts to appear fair-minded but is operationally supportive of the DFL. Here’s how they open their section on the DFL:

While DFL leaders should be praised for doing so much bonding “leg work” in advance of the session, those efforts do little good when the final product slaps the governor in the face, twice, hard.

Slap one was the amount. Pawlenty first said a bill should not top $685 million. A week ago he raised that to $725 million. Meanwhile, the DFL put forth plans at $1 billion-plus before agreeing Monday on a $999.9 million plan.

So much for finding middle ground.

Later in the editorial they admit that there’s a bunch of pork in the bill:

Not to be overlooked: While bonding bills are rich in “pork,” Pawlenty has a point in questioning a bill that funds sculpture gardens and volleyball courts ahead of prison facilities.

Fair enough. Until this part of the editorial:

Simple numbers tell the story of how Republican legislators are willing to let their party’s agenda outweigh what’s best for most Minnesotans. The bill passed the House 85-46 and cleared the Senate 47-19. Sixty-seven percent of lawmakers voted for it.

However, given overriding a veto takes five more (Republican) votes in the House, the reality is 2.5 percent of legislators are stopping passage of a bill that basically seven in 10 support.

The Times’ logic appears to be that putting tons of debt on the state’s credit card is ok because so many legislators voted to burden our state with pork. It obviously hasn’t dawned on the Times’ Editorial Board that the minority party did the right thing in opposing this irresponsible spending.

It’s also noteworthy that the Times didn’t mention that the bill passed in both houses with almost unanimous DFL support and almost no GOP support. I think that would be an important piece of information because it would tell people which party was supportive of spending money irresponsibly and which party voted against fiscal irresponsibility.

This is why people are abandoning newspapers. They’re starved for the information they need for making the right decisions. Leaving this information out sends a ‘there’s no difference between the parties’ message. As the Times admits, that isn’t supported by the facts. The DFL voted for fiscal irresponsibility by spending money that hasn’t been earned yet while the GOP, with a couple exceptions, voted against spending irresponsibly.

It’s time that the Times’ Editorial Board started telling the whole story, not just the parts that favor its storyline.

Finally, I can’t let it go that they cheapshotted Gov. Pawlenty like this:

Simply put, claims of “closed door” legislating ring hollow when you are in a different time zone.

I’d label that a cheapshot because the Times’ Editorial Board didn’t mention that Gov. Pawlenty was in DC for the National Governors Association meetings. It also didn’t mention that the NGA meetings included substantive meetings, including a session with First Lady Michelle Obama on the issue of childhood obesity and a meeting with President Obama.

It’s time that the Times started including important facts like that instead of omitting them for scoring cheap political points.

Technorati: Media Bias, Agenda Media, St. Cloud Times, Bonding Bill, Pork, President Obama, Michelle Obama, DFL, New Media, Blogs, Tim Pawlenty, NGA Meetings, Veto, MNGOP