More Brancaccio situational ethics: Would you do the fair thing?

(FULL DISCLOSURE: NO candidate or campaign or anyone involved or in any way concerned with any candidate or campaign was aware of or approved or had input into this post.

Further, Marc Boldt is my brother in law, and I worked for him as his legislative assistant for 6 years while he was in the state house.)

Lou Brancaccio, a newspaper editor long since known for avoiding "fairness" as much as he avoids truth, postulated a fascinating question this morning: would you do the fair thing?

Not because the issue he's cherry-picked (substantial overpayments that will have to be repaid after the dust settles by those neo-communist PSE retirees in Portland) but because he's incapable of applying the "fairness standard" to himself or his newspaper.

An example?

It's not fair for this newspaper to shill an admissions tax to get a baseball team owned by millionaires here in downtown (the worst possible location) that his paper would make bank from without offering up his own organization to be taxed as well.  No, instead he would tax hundreds of thousands of US, without asking US, to pay for HIS cash cow.

It's not fair to engage in character assassination, exaggeration, and the writing of articles without at least going through the motions of calling the target for comment.

It's not fair to shill the CRC/Bridge Replacement/Loot rail scam without demanding that the entire rip off be put to a county-wide vote.

It's not fair to fail to do an in-depth story on the Oregon Supreme Court decision detailing what a massive and horrific scam the CRC is.

It's not fair to fail to hold elected democrats accountable for their alcohol-fueled misconduct where female staff are, effectively, molested as a result, ala democrat former state representative Jim Jacks.

It's not fair to blow rhetorical holes through David Madore without doing the same to his AT LEAST equally lying opponent, Marc Boldt.

In fact, this is a newspaper known for it's lack of fairness, objectivity and truthfulness; particularly when the issue at hand conflicts with their almighty agenda.

In fact, if they don't "like" you, then you can forget all about fairness.

And that goes to this issue: while those overpaid should, and obviously will, at some point repay the money, the fact that Brancaccio is commenting on that situation reduces the impact and depth of the story.

If only he were what he demands of others: fair.

But they're rarely seen in the same location at the same time.  So, that comes under the broad heading of hypocrite... when you demand fairness of others, but forget all about it's application to yourself and what YOU do.