One question: Who'll be checking the checkers?

Staff
Saturday, March 22, 2014 9:42 am

One question: Who'll be checking the checkers? | between the lines

It’s not often you get a belly laugh reading an editorial, but I got one today.

The Pingree Press Herald in a “Thoughts at Week’s End” missive chided Gov. LePage about his statements this week in support of a sort of Truth Commission.

LePage would have the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices ferret out false and egregiously misleading or unfounded claims that are made during a political race.

I back the governor 100 percent and there may be merit to the governor’s idea, but I’m not totally on board, mostly for the same reason I don’t back the notorious Voter Guide foisted on Lebanon residents last June, a guide rift with politics and directional verbiage designed to have votes cast as desired by selectmen.

The notorious Voter Guide was printed and mailed with taxpayer money just a few days before Election Day.

We don’t need the government to tell us how to vote, especially on our dime, whether it be Obama, a Senator or Representative or town officials.

Besides, selectmen and the Budget Committee already get to indicate their support on the referendum ballot come Election Day.

But back to the belly laugh.

The Pingree Press Herald, with whom I am in rare agreement on an issue, said (and this is where it gets good) the public relies on newspapers to fact-check political ads and the Pingree Press Herald has dispatched staff to do just that.

For all of you who weren’t aware, the Pingree Press Herald is owned by hedge fund tycoon Donald Sussman, a hugely wealthy philanthropist who has donated vast sums of money to Democratic candidates and causes and is the husband of U.S. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, D-Maine.

During the last election cycle Sussman was the largest political contributor from Maine, giving $700,000 to the Democratic PAC, according to a PPH story from two years ago.

An odd factoid is that on Sussman’s Wikipedia page, he is mentioned as a benefactor of many political candidates, but it doesn’t say those candidates are Democrats. But they are.