Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Anti-Tom Bias at the Franklin News-Post?

Check out this article from today's Franklin News-Post about Congressman Perriello's vote to reauthorize S-CHIP. Judging by the headline and subtitle, one would think Congressman Perriello went out of his way to raise the tobacco tax and knowingly damage the economy: 
"Perriello votes to double cigarette tax"
"Although congressman says it will likely have dramatic impact on jobs and revenues across the country."
The fact that it was actually a bill expanding health care coverage for underprivileged children is apparently not headline-worthy. Interestingly, the meat of the bill is buried toward the end of the article, including the part where Tom rips the decision to include the tax increase:
Perriello (D-Albemarle County) said he supported the reauthorization of SCHIP, but he added that he was disappointed that the Senate version included a "disproportionate increase in the excise tax rate on tobacco products."

...

"Because 99 percent of smokers make less than $250,000 a year, imposing such an onerous excise tax on tobacco will unfairly punish tobacco consumers - many who are members of the working poor - hard-working men and women living from paycheck to paycheck," Perriello said.
Tom voted for S-CHIP because it's the right thing to do. By voting for the bill, which originally did not include the tobacco tax, he was not only honoring a campaign promise, but expanding health coverage to 55,000 Virginia kids. 

This article, at least the headline and subtitle, reads like a Goode campaign press release. It's flagrantly obvious what's happening here. I wonder why the News-Post is deliberately trying to tear down Tom--is it just sour grapes? After all, they shared a street with the former congressman's offices and were in the nerve center of his fiefdom. Or, in light of a recent Martinsville Bulletin article wherein Goode takes credit for bringing defense jobs to Martinsville, does someone at the paper know something about Virgil's future political ambitions?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

IMO, it was a mistake for Perriello to vote for the bill. It's not like they needed his vote, anyway. If he were to stop and take a moment to figure out how the GOP is going to attack (for lack of a better word) him in 2010, he would have realized that this vote is all loss and no gain. I'm not going to go giving away all our trade secrets, but we can't hit him on voting against expansion of government-sponsored healthcare. We can, however, hit him on a vote to raise taxes.
Now we're allowed to say he's a spineless liberal (New York lawyer? oh wait, that didn't work... idiots...) who can't vote against something he opposes because he's in bed (not literally thank God) with the scary liberals like Nancy Pelosi. He's making it far too easy for us; he's got to remember that the perfect storm that swept him into office won't be there in 2010.