Beyond Stenography/The One Trick Pony

Today in The Quad-Cities Times, Ed Tibbetts did a fine piece of civic journalism in his article, Hare Gets Noticed As Free-Trade Critic.

This is what I have been kvetching about for some time—-that Hare is more Big Labor lobbyist than representative of all the interests of the 17th.

Of course, Tibbetts doesn’t just come right out and say that, instead he writes a thoughtful article examining many aspects of NAFTA and globalization.

Tibbetts contacted the Farm Bureau for their opinion about cutting back on trade and they are AGAINST cut backs because they figure the agriculture sales to Peru could increase by more than $700 million. But Hare isn’t interested in representing  our local agriculture community.

Take a look at Hare’s Opencongress blog page. In a 5 day period, you’ll see at least 15 blog posts about Hare’s opposition to free trade. He really is the go-to guy for Big Labor concerns.  Then go to his main OpenCongress page and you’ll see that over 77% of Hare’s funding comes from Labor, Ideology/Single Issue and Lawyers/Lobbyists.  Which explains a lot.

But not all Democrats are against NAFTA and free trade agreements because they are catering to their own special interests and donors.  Buried at the bottom of a New York  Times article about the Peru Free Trade deal is this:

Democrats from the prosperous areas of the East and West Coast have become especially responsive, many Democrats say, to the desire of Wall Street and the high technology, health pharmaceutical and entertainment industries to expand their sales overseas.  These industries have also become major Democratic contributors.

Not trading with Peru will not bring back those Maytag jobs in Galesburg or return all those good union jobs making farm machinery to the QCs.  We have had Democrat Congressmen for the last quarter century and neither Lane Evans nor Phil Hare could or will stop the inexorable march of globalization and free trade,  but Hare should at least consider other factors and interests in the 17th and not just the interests of his Big Labor paymasters.

But enough ranting. Tibbetts could have just made this another puff piece about a local politician who has gained prominence as a Big Labor spokesman, and just copied Hare’s Big Labor talking points. But instead, Tibbetts gave us a broader view and more information about what these trade agreements do and what they mean.

Bravo Ed! More articles like this—please!