Sometimes you come across a story or an article that just gets your imagination jumping.
The type of article that takes you away to a faraway, imagined dreamland like in "The Wizard of Oz." A place where maybe common sense is not the underlying ruler of the day. But it's all done in Technicolor and the beauty of your surroundings overtakes the reality of your black-and-white situation, while you're living in the state of Michigan.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff talked about such a thing on his podcast today and for a brief moment, I had delusions of grandeur but was quickly pulled back in the cold and dark reality that winter is coming to Michigan.
Actually, the political winter has been in effect since 2018 and will not let up any time soon.
I have written about LeDuff and his reporting here a number of times at RedState. He is a true throwback to what we used to expect from reporters--picking a story to follow and reporting on the facts, letting the chips fall where they may, and letting people decide what they think of that story.
He actually admitted to voting for Gretchen Whitmer in 2018 but had the gall to write a story that was critical of her and actually sued her administration during COVID. I covered his lawsuit right here back in 2021. Pulitzer Winning Journalist Announces COVID Death Count Lawsuit Against Michigan Governor.
From that story.
The Whitmer administration has not fulfilled my request or our request on the No Bulls**t News Hour for COVID death data that may shed light on the true extent of the nursing home devastation. This, in my opinion, is a violation of state law, and more so and this is not an opinion, it is a danger and a disservice to our institutionalized elders who have borne the brunt of the suffering and continue to bear it. (Guv) Cuomo in New York is now under Federal investigation, a second one apparently for misleading the public whose nursing home playbook was copied by (Guv) Whitmer. This in the aftermath of an investigation conducted by the office of the New York State Attorney General, a democrat.
LeDuff continued:
Release the data Madame Governor but she won’t, so Steve Deliee the lead policy lawyer on transparency and open government with the august and well regarded Mackinac Center the non-partisan think tank here in Michigan, they have agreed to take our case to sue the Whitmer administration for the death data in these nursing homes.
Can you imagine someone from the National Press Corps who voted for Joe Biden actually deciding that the Hunter Biden story was actually worth going full throttle on and suing them for information?
Me neither.
Charlie, though, is at it again, and this time, he has a hot take on if Biden falls flat and Whitmer decides to throw her militant hat into the ring nationally.
From his video earlier on X (which is the platform formerly known as Twitter).
Is this the beginning of the end for Governor Whitmer?#charlieleduff #GovernorWhitmer #GretchenWhitmer #JoeBiden pic.twitter.com/YIc0iG6vkB
— Charlie LeDuff (@Charlieleduff) September 1, 2023
Increasingly it looks as if President Joe Biden has neither the energy nor the acuity to make it to the finish line and that could be a bad thing for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Ambition being what it is if stumbling Joe belly flops then big Gretch will most certainly dive into the Democratic primary.
That'll bring withering scrutiny from an equally ambitious national press corps. No longer will Whitmer's national news clippings be limited to the doodlings of hand-picked sycophants with liberal arts degrees living in cramped Manhattan apartments. Just ask Vivek Ramaswamy by far the most entertaining contestant in last week's Trumpless GOP reality show.
And if you're the most entertaining you win the internet.
With Ramaswami's win, however, comes the media stink eye. Notice how the East Coast press has zeroed in on his business dealings his calls for a national revolution, the defunding of Israel his fantasies of bromancing Vladimir Putin away from China.
It'll be harder for Whitmer because there's an actual record to rummage through and it's not very good.
Some pugnacious reporters eager to make a name for themselves are going to excavate those unflattering facts. To wit:
Whitmer has her very own poisoning scandal reminiscent of the Flint debacle, it happened in Benton Harbor another poor majority black town that's home to 10,000 people on the shores of Lake Michigan.
I will come back to the point LeDuff is making, about another poisoned water scandal in the state, in another article to focus exclusively on that. However, his overall point is that Whitmer would get creamed by members of the national press if she poked her noggin above the politics of the Great Lake State.
I, unfortunately, do not have that confidence.
In 2020, the national press corps was an accomplice to getting Joe Biden elected. Those who have been around the national scene long enough, we're definitely wise enough to know that with Joe Biden's 40 years in Washington, D.C., what an unmitigated disaster he would be as President.
They still covered for him.
I understand that people have individual opinions on certain policy issues and how things should run -- and reporters are not exempt from that. I know we would all love to live in a perfect world but reporters are human beings, too, and they have biases just like you and I do.
However, here is the thing that absolutely befuddles me.
If you're a reporter and writing any opposition pieces about Donald Trump who is the President of the United States during the 2020 election -- and you are being seen on cable news networks and you're getting more clicks on your articles than you have ever in your life: keep it going, baby. I don't think you should pull any punches with Trump, but maybe even it out a bit by writing some critical thinking pieces about Joe Biden. If Trump wins re-election, you've got another four years on the gravy train of building up your personal street cred.
Maybe there are some new up-and-coming reporters that Charlie LeDuff knows about who would be willing to dive into some of the work that he has done here on the Whitmer Administration over the past three or four years.
Maybe I'm just a rube living north of Detroit and I'm missing that there are some reporters who are being trained in Charlie's mold, and are willing to chase a story no matter what their personal feelings on the issue or the person are.
I hope LeDuff is right and I'm wrong.
However, this is Michigan and we are currently in the most northern part of any spoof sitcom south of the Mason-Dixon line that you could imagine. But we aren't laughing up here. Just crying.
