By Jim Belshaw
Of the Journal
A reader writes with a question: Why is The New York Times zinging New Mexico? "Hey, what's with the gratuitous slam on New Mexico?" John M. says. "We may have our ethics problems, but I cannot remember the last time a (New Mexico) lawmaker kicked a photographer."
The kicking politician is an odd duck of a Colorado Republican named Douglas Bruce, who was appointed to his seat in the Colorado Legislature by the state Republican Party. He was not elected.
At his swearing in, he kicked a newspaper photographer in the knee, and he reportedly kicked him hard.
When he refused to apologize, he was censured by a vote of 62-1. (The Republicans are none too happy with him, either.)
In the 11th paragraph of the story, Times reporter Dan Frosch writes this: "The situation harks back to a day when Western statehouses were halls of brawling, boozing and ill repute. Some legislatures, like that of neighboring New Mexico, have not entirely shed that reputation."
Ahem ...
This has be right, right? It couldn't be in The New York Times if it wasn't right, right?
Well, maybe not ...
I'm not too keen on the brawling because my back hurts too much, but if Santa Fe is awash in boozing and ill repute, how come the rest of us haven't been invited? Why do we have to find out about these things in the 11th paragraph in The Times?
If you want to read the whole Times story, I've linked to it in my Journal blog (www.abqjournal/belshaw).
Speaking of blogging, I took a sabbatical for a while, but now I'm back in the game largely because a blogger friend has been leaning on me to get back in it.
Speaking of which, you'll also find links to people who have thoughts on why Bill Clinton is working so hard to get Republicans elected.
I had lunch Friday with a friend who is not only a liberal Democrat old enough to remember FDR, but is almost old enough to have voted for FDR.
The subject of Bill Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama came up, and she said: "What the hell is Bill Clinton doing? Trying to get John McCain elected?"
In the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Chait captured her dismay with this: "Something strange happened the other day. All these different people— friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read— kept saying the same thing: They've suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we've reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons."
E.J. Dionne has similar thoughts in The Washington Post.
In Saturday's Journal, my colleague Jeff Jones looked at the Clinton-Obama fight as it comes to New Mexico.
I've linked to all in the blog.
One final blog note: It's not just a compendium of politics. There's other stuff, too.
You know, the good stuff: a pizza map of the U.S., a glacier grotto in Norway brought about by global warming, a nice little history of computing that begins with a 35,000-year-old baboon fibula notched 29 times to measure ... something.
Don't look askance: Spend an hour surfing with Democrats and Republicans and pretty soon a baboon fibula can look like an oasis in a long stretch of desert.
Write to Jim Belshaw at The Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; telephone— 823-3930; e-mail— jbelshaw@abqjournal.com.
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