Dishonest J-S editorial criticizes dishonest ads

File under: Breitblartiana

Xoff saved us all a lot of time on this one.

Nevertheless, let's drill down, so to speak.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial reads:

WisPolitics asked, "Do you want to open up more of the United States — the continental United States — to drilling. I mean, would you support drilling like in the Great Lakes for example, if there was oil found there, or using more exploration in Alaska, in ANWR, those kinds of things?"

So far so good. Here's where things go awry:

Johnson said in part, "We have to be realistic and recognize that fact, and I think we have to get the oil where it is but we need to do it responsibly."

Recognize what fact? The Journal-Sentinel doesn't say. Ron Johnson asserts two facts, both of which the J-S deliberately omits. This is his immediate response, including the preface that the J-S excised:

RON JOHNSON: Y'know, the bottom line is that we are an oil-based economy. We're really, there's nothing we're going to do to get off of that for many, many years. So I mean we just have to, we have to be realistic and recognize that fact and I think we have to get the oil where it is ...*

1) This are an oil-based economy.
2) It will be for many years.

Therefore, says Ron Johnson, "we have to get the oil where it is," including in the Great Lakes. That is what he was specifically asked, and that is what he was specifically answering. That he wants to do it "responsibly" doesn't change the fact that Johnson says we have to "get the oil where it is," including the Great Lakes.**

Conclude the J-S editorialists:

So, he doesn't respond directly to the Great Lakes portion of the question, instead answering generally.

Rubbish.

And, as Xoff correctly points out, it wasn't until nearly a month later — after Russ Feingold's teevee ad appeared — that Ron Johnson went hiking the flip-flop trail. Johnson said a number of politically silly things at various events in June before someone told him to clam up.

That's why he's more recently gone Sharron Angle.

* 100610Johnson.mp3. The exchange is at 13:23.

** There is oil there. See "Should Canada Continue Drilling for Oil and Gas Under the Great Lakes?" by S. Nazhmetdinova (.pdf; 41 pgs.).