even more lessons learned

Lesson Learned During Spring Break #5: Our fave local paper remains willing to allow candidates for civic office to obfuscate and equivocate. I returned this morning to a front-page headline yawping: “THEIR FINAL ANSWER!!!” (okay, sans exclamation points, but still--) The story purported to give the candidate's opinions on the smoking ban. But the candidates didn’t give “final answers”. Some were intentionally vague, as in Jerry Hodge’s

There are some things in the ordinance that just aren’t right.

Some were bizarrely ungrammatical, as in Larry McDowell’s

But I think that depends on the business owner, depending on what type of business it is . . . So therefore, my opinion on that is depending on what type of situation you’re in.

And most passed the buck, as in Debra McCartt’s ultra-strange (not to mention ultra-cynical) answer

I really believe that the voters don’t really care how I feel about the issue. I’m going to vote just like everybody else, and it’s just a private vote,

or Daniel Martinez’s

It’s not really for me to say from my position,

or Terry Stavenhagen’s

We have sent this to a referendum,

or Robert Key’s

I do neither. I do not support it – for or against it,

or . . .

None were asked to elaborate by the Globe-News.

SPACEDARK